And Then I Found You
by skygirl55
Summary: For months its been more about surviving than living, but a chance meeting could change all of that. Caskett AU. Semi apocalyptic. For #Castleficathon2018
1. Chapter 1

**And Then I Found You**

For months its been more about surviving than living, but a chance meeting could change all of that. Caskett AU. Semi apocalyptic. For #Castleficathon2018

14 Chapters + Epilogue

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

 **October**

"Ka-tieee. Wake up Kaaaa-tieeee."

At the melodic sound of her mother's voice, Kate snuggled tighter to her pillow. "Two more minutes," she mumbled, still well within the confines of sleep. School could definitely wait a few more minutes. Well, no, the school wouldn't wait for her, but how important was homeroom anyway?

"Katie, c'mon!"

Now in addition to calling for her, Kate felt her shoulder shaking and groaned. No, no—not yet. Not when she felt so warm and cozy in her bed.

"Katie!"

Kate's eyes popped open when her mother's tone grew sharper. She gasped slightly when she saw not the white-and-lavender floral wallpaper of her childhood bedroom but the tan nylon façade of the tent in which she rested. In one instant, reality came crashing in like a violent roll of thunder.

She was not in her parent's Manhattan apartment—or any Manhattan apartment for that matter. She was in a tent, sleeping on the ground with only a balled up sweatshirt for a pillow. And she wasn't warm and cozy under a blanket. She was hot—already sweating from the humidity despite being dressed in linen pants and a t-shirt.

Groaning and swiping at her brow with the back of her right hand, Kate rolled onto her back and gazed at the dark-haired woman crouching by her hip. Glancing behind the woman, she could see out of the tent's entrance and up into the sky, which was filled with puffy floating clouds on a canvas painted with blue. Looking back to the woman she mumbled, "I slept late?"

She shrugged. "A little."

Kate mumbled out, "Sorry," through a yawn and reached out for the bottle of water a foot away. She emptied the container—not that there were more than a few swallows inside to begin with—and sighed as she dropped it down into her lap. Every time she finished a bottle she was reminded once again of how they no longer lived in a word where quenching thirst was as easy as finding the nearest sink or corner store. Nothing was that easy anymore.

"Don't worry about it—it got us out of laundry duty," her mother, Johanna, said with a smile. Then, she reached out and brushed a chunk of her daughter's hair from her head. "Are you feeling alright, sweetheart?"

She shrugged in response as "alright" didn't seem a terrible descriptor, though probably not the most accurate. Did she feel alright? No—in fact, she felt utterly miserable. She was hot, sweaty, and desperately wanted to wash her hair more than every other week with lukewarm rainwater. She wanted clean clothes, a real bed, and a steak cooked to medium with a side of fluffy, buttery mashed potatoes. Six months earlier such desires would have been considered quite basic and easily attainable, but not then and, the longer this went on she feared they never would be again.

In that moment, Kate was about as good as she could be, all things considered. Her neck was a bit cramped from her awkward sleeping position and her shoulder hurt from being smashed into a particularly hard part of the ground for six-and-a-half hours, but she was alive; she was breathing.

"I'm fine, Mom, just…ready for this damn humidity to go away. I thought it was October."

"It is, but this is no longer New York."

"But we're not in Florida," Kate grumbled. Though it was difficult for them to discern their exact geographical location, they were somewhere in the middle of Virginia and she was pretty sure Virginia experienced fall. Then again, it was quite early in the month; perhaps fall didn't hit until later on.

"C'mon." Johanna backed her way out of the tent crawling on her hands and knees and then beckoned for her daughter to join her. "It's not so bad out here—there's a nice breeze and everything."

With a resigned sigh, Kate crawled out after her mother and stood just outside the tent, blinking her eyes several times to adjust to the difference in brightness. She surveyed the area, taking note of the eight tents spread out beneath the cluster of trees they found. Though this was only their second night camped in that particular location, it was the exact place they liked to be: flat with plenty of visibility, yet far enough off the main road that they couldn't be seen by passers-by (assuming anyone actually passed by, which was unlikely).

At that point in the morning, the only people who remained in the camp were the children under ten and their adult guardian of the day, a woman around her mother's age named Mary. The rest of the group was off doing the laundry or scavenging for food and water. Scavenging would also be the task she and her mother needed to work on that day as their water supply was running low and finding enough food was always a challenge with a group as large as theirs. Kate didn't even want to think about what winter would bring when plucking a piece of fruit from a tree or a bush was not an option available to them—not that they found very much viable food that way, but it happened on occasion. That was a problem for later time, though. For that moment, they only needed to focus on the day ahead.

"Here," Johanna said as she passed over an apple from their shared food supply.

"Thanks. What direction are we heading out today?"

She pointed towards the east. "Away from the road. Someone from yesterday's team said they thought they saw a neighborhood that direction; we should check it out."

"Gotcha," Kate said while munching on her apple. She bit down hard and trapped it between her teeth while she dug into her bag for her last clean t-shirt. She pulled off the one she wore and tossed it to the ground with a wrinkled nose; too bad she'd already missed the laundry brigade because that one was filthy. After pulling on the clean shirt, she took the apple out of her mouth and said, "Okay, I'm ready to go, I guess."

Johanna arched a skeptical eyebrow. "Really? With those on?"

Kate glanced down to where her mother pointed and let out a laugh as she still wore the hot pink Adidas slip on sandals she wore overnight. Given their current predicament, she never wanted to be in a situation where she could not easily flee, thus shoes were a necessity at all times; however, as her feet spent many hours cramped in boots or sneakers, sweating through sock after sock, she did like to give them the chance to breathe whenever she could. "Oops. Hang on."

As she climbed back into the tent to put on her boots, Kate considered for perhaps the tenth time how bizarre her situation was. She never in her life would have anticipating wearing shoes she scavenged from a random, unknown individual's home instead of those she purchased from a store. She never would have expected to feel excitement upon discovering a plastic bottle along the side of a road that still had water inside of it—and she certainly never would have considered drinking from said bottle, but the apocalypse did funny things to people.

Six months earlier Kate was happily living her life as a lawyer in New York City. She had a good job, caring friends, and a small, but loving family. Then, seemingly overnight, the world fell apart. A bizarre and highly-contagious illness began to consume most of the city's residents. The fatality rate seemed around eighty percent, which would have been horrific, but that was not the worst part. Somehow, those that succumbed to this illness did not remain dead, but reanimated into flesh-eating monsters hell-bent on destroying what remained of humanity.

Within days the city was chaos and Kate knew escaping would be the only way to survive. As her father had died nearly a decade earlier and she had no siblings, she and her mother packed up all they could carry and entered the fray of those attempting to leave the doomed island. For the next few weeks in addition to the monsters they faced human adversaries trying to steal what little they had, but the further away from New York they moved the more they saw that the world had changed, and thus the way in which they lived would need to as well.

Though neither Kate nor her mother considered themselves well-versed in survival knowledge, they learned quickly both from picking up books (Kate was convinced they were the only people to ever break in to a library) and asking questions of those trustworthy individuals they found. Their days were exhausting, frustrating, and could be very, very sad at times, but they had made it six months and hoped to make it six more, and then six more after that. Sad as it seemed, Kate no longer planned for the distant future. She thought about the next day, maybe the day after that, but no longer as things could change in an instant and they knew that better than anyone.

"Okay." Kate stood after lacing up her boots and picked up her scavenging rucksack from the ground, tossing it over her right shoulder. "Now I'm ready."

Johanna nodded and picked up her own bag. "Okay then; let's go."

* * *

Richard Castle awoke not to the honk of a car horn or even the obnoxious beeping on an alarm clock, but to the snarling noises of an inhuman creature seeking to bite down on his flesh. He yelped loudly and scrambled to his feet, searching frantically for the source of the noises. He'd long since learned that sleeping out in the open was a terrible idea, so he'd holed up in a detached garage for the night. He'd feared one of the creatures had breached the door, but it had not; it remained on the outside, scraping and biting at the glass.

Castle heaved out a relieved breath and bent forward, resting his hands against his thighs as he waited for his heartrate to calm down. After a few deep, calming breaths he crouched down and began to roll up the blue tarp he was using as makeshift bedding. It did absolutely nothing to add to his comfort other than protecting him from any ground moisture that might exist. Considering he no longer had a change of clothing, a moisture barrier was a practical necessity. Of course, the concrete garage floor was not wet, but he hadn't wanted to sleep on the oil drippings, either.

With the tarp collected as neatly as possible, he then picked up the gray duffel bag he'd discovered on a high garage shelf and tucked it inside so that he only had one item to carry with him. The prior day he'd been relieved of his backpack—and the food and clothing inside—by a passing band of hoodlums intent on ruining his day. Castle liked to think he could hold his own in a fight (he had written about dozens of them, as it happened), but when it was four against one, he had no chance and had simply chosen to toss over the bag and save himself from getting too bloody. They'd landed a sharp jab in his gut for good measure, but otherwise left him unscathed for which he remained grateful. Still, losing the soup cans and candy bars he'd managed to collect felt like a secondary sucker punch, especially to his cramping stomach.

Gazing around the garage, Castle considered his situation. Thanks to the stifling heat and the literal concrete floor, he had slept rather poorly, but at least he had slept some, which was more than he could say for at least half of the prior weeks' worth of nights when he'd been outside, exposed and afraid. His stomach ached with such voracious hunger it was beginning to feel like a gaping open wound that might never heal. His head ached, which he felt resulted from poor sleep in combination with hunger and dehydration, but it wasn't any worse than what he'd become accustomed to.

Sighing to himself, Castle shuffled his way towards the window on the opposite side of the garage from the one the undead were scratching at. Though the garage had not contained anything edible, it was filled with plenty of tools that could be used as defensive weapons. He'd taken two screw drivers and a bent, but still useable, knife for later use, but he was not in the mood for a fight just then. Fortunately, when he pushed open the window and poked his head out cautiously, he saw the path was clear. It was a tight squeeze, but he managed to hoist his large frame through the opening and clamber out onto the ground without drawing the attention of any of the snarling creatures. Then, throwing the bag strap over his left shoulder, Castle headed back towards the street sending a silent prayer towards the heavens that one of the nearby houses would contain something he could eat.

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you for reading!

Yes, this is another zombie apocalypse AU, but this one is even more zombie-lite than the other one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

"I'm guessing that's it," Johanna commented when they reached a clearing in the trees after about fifteen minutes of walking. They stood atop a small hill gazing down upon a cluster of houses less than a quarter mile away. The space between was mostly scrub plants and a few bushes through which a blacktop path wound almost as though the now-unkept area was once a park or green-space area for the neighboring housing area.

"Yeah," Kate said as she stepped up beside her mother. "Though I don't know that I would call that a neighborhood." Only eight houses were clustered together along a road that ended in a cul-de-sac. Seeing as they hadn't seen many houses as of late, she supposed she could understand why their group member had described the area as such, but in Kate's mind "neighborhood" described multiple streets and dozens of houses, not just this. Then again, there really was no point to arguing terminology. If they found food and water here, it would be worth it.

Humming and walking a few steps to her right, Johanna crouched down, gazed for several moments and then stood backup. "So what are we thinking? We have a nice vantage point up here, but this hill is pretty steep; we could have trouble running back up if things went south."

Kate shrugged. The hill didn't seem that steep to her—at least not steep enough that she was concerned she wouldn't be able to outrun the monsters if they were around; those things were pretty slow moving. "I can go down and you can keep watch up here."

Johanna gave her the same skeptical look she always had whenever Kate suggested they split apart. "Let's just watch for a few minutes and see what we see, okay? We have time."

"If you want."

Kate and her mother both crouched down in the tall grass, so they were less visible from the cul-de-sac street. From what they had seen, the undead relied mostly on auditory senses, not vision, so it would be impossible for them to be noticed from so high up. Other humans, however, would have had no trouble seeing them and if they were armed that could cause a very large problem.

For over five minutes they remained in silence before Kate caught what she thought might be a glimpse of movement between the houses, but it was difficult to tell. She crawled to her right hoping to achieve a better angle and that was when she saw it—something was bobbing behind a black pickup truck on the street, but what was it? A stray bit of trash blowing in the wind? A flesh-hungry undead being? A human seeking refuge? From that angle, she couldn't tell.

"What do you see?" Johanna whispered.

"Black truck," Kate responded in equal decibel.

She turned her eyes back to the area in question and stared intently for several moments until, suddenly, a small being darted out from behind the truck and raced out of view. "There!"

"I saw," Johanna said, her voice still quiet. "Definitely wasn't a monster."

"It looked more like a child," Kate concluded. Though all she could see was a burst of red hair and dark clothing, she doubted an adult would move like that. A frown crossed her face as she thought of a child alone in the world in which they now lived—how terrible.

"Wait."

Kate felt her mother's hand encircle her wrist just as she was about to make her way down the hill towards the houses. Turning her head she whispered, "She's probably alone."

"She might not be. If she is alone, she's not going anywhere fast. Let's just watch a few more minutes."

Kate knew better than to argue so she merely crouched back down and watched street, alternating her gaze between the truck and the other spaces between the houses in case the girl was leaving the neighborhood.

Another five minutes passed before they saw her again. That time, she had her arms loaded down with something that Kate could not discern. She carried the items behind the truck and when she emerged she no longer held them. Once again, she ran out of sight.

"She's scavenging."

"So it would appear," Johanna said. "We still don't know if she's alone or not."

"That's okay," Kate said as she stood and checked to make sure her knife was well seated in its slot on her belt. "I'll find out."

"Katie…"

"I know I know—be careful." Kate smiled, though Johanna's expression remained cautious. She gave her mother's shoulder a squeeze and then began the trek down the hill towards the neighborhood. As it turned out her mother had been right; the grade was much steeper than she anticipated, so Kate had to run down the embankment until it flattened out for fear she'd trip and fall. Once she reached the path, she slowed her progress to a more casual pace. She kept her right hand on the butt of her knife and her eyes darted back and forth looking for adversaries both alive and not.

The further she walked Kate realized this path must have been created specifically for the neighborhood for it had placards near the ground explaining what wild flowers and other plant life were growing where. Plus, there was a trash can with a sign explaining it was for dog waste. Having grown up in Manhattan, she found a neighborhood-specific miniature park a rather amusing concept, but didn't dwell on it too much as she was focusing on staying safe.

When she reached the edge of the neighborhood she saw that the blacktop path led down to the street by cutting between two houses. Unfortunately, this meant she would be walking around a blind corner, which Kate did not believe was preferable. Still, she had little choice. Walking quickly, she went left so she could hug the side of one of the houses as she moved forward. She crept along slowly, checking back over her shoulder every so often and focusing on the road in front of her.

When she reached the front edge of the house, she paused. Since the street was curved she could see to her right that there was absolutely nothing except a vacant neighborhood. Taking this as a good sign, Kate checked behind her once more before peering to her left around the side of the house. She could see through the front porch to most of the rest of the neighborhood; it was also vacant. She crept out a little bit further with her hand still firmly on her knife, but still saw nothing until a moment later when the red-headed girl emerged from two houses down.

Kate immediately dropped back and crouched down in the bushes beside the house's front porch. She watched the girl carry out an armload of what appeared to be cereal boxes and cart them over to the other side of the truck. Ducking her head so that her chin was nearly on the grass, Kate watched the girl's feet. Based on what she could see, it appeared as though the little girl was loading some sort of wagon or trailer with her discoveries. Most importantly, Kate saw no other human activity; just the child.

Nodding to herself, knowing she was making the right decision of this girl was truly alone, Kate stood and walked confidently down the front yard of the house. She reached the edge of the street just as the girl rounded the back of the truck. She clearly didn't see Kate for several more steps for when she caught sight of the woman she gasped, jumped, and began backing her way towards the truck.

"No wait!" Kate called out to her. She held out her hands wide showing the girl her empty palms. "It's okay—I'm not going to hurt you."

The girl said nothing, but she also didn't run away. She merely stared wide-eyed at Kate, her chest heaving up and down.

Taking two steps forward, Kate continued with, "It's okay—you don't have to be afraid. My name is Kate. What's yours?"

"A-Alexis."

Kate smiled and walked two steps closer. "It's nice to meet you, Alexis. Are you out here alone?"

The girl shook her head and Kate felt her legs tense. "My…my gran."

"Your grandmother?" Kate guessed; the girl nodded. "Where is she?"

Alexis pointed to the house in front of which the truck was parked.

"Is that your house?"

"No, we found it."

"Where are you from?"

"New York."

"Manhattan? Oh, me too." Kate smiled when the girl confirmed with a nod. "So, we have something in common, then."

"Are you alone?" Alexis asked her.

"No, I'm not. See up there? On that hill?" Kate pointed between the houses. She didn't believe she was at the correct angle for her mother to be able to see her, but she thought Alexis might be visible, which would help ease her mother's worry. "My mother's up there waiting for me. We're traveling with a group of about fifteen."

She watched as Alexis looked at the hill for several moments and then gazed back to her. "You…do you have medicine there?"

Kate felt the hairs at the back of her neck prickle. Was that why Alexis appeared to be scavenging alone? Did her grandmother have the illness that turned men into monsters? She hadn't seen anyone who was alive and sick for quite some time, but that didn't mean it wasn't possible. Or, she counter argued in her mind, it was possible the grandmother was a diabetic or needed blood pressure medication, which while concerning, would not have been dangerous to her, her mother, or anyone else they traveled with. "We have some. Are you asking for your grandma?"

Alexis nodded.

"Do you know what she needs?" The girl shook her head, so Kate continued and said, "Well, would you mind if I went and asked her?"

"I…I don't know," she said, turning her gaze towards her feet.

"You mean, because I'm a stranger?" Kate guessed. The young red-head gazed at her from beneath her brow and Kate assumed her guess to be correct. "Well, okay; that's fair. Why don't we get to know each other a little bit then, hmm? My name is Kate, like I said, and I'm a lawyer in New York—well, I was, anyway. My mom's a lawyer, too. Is there anything you want to ask me?"

Alexis clasped her hands in front of her and rubbed her thumbs together for a few moments before asking, "Do you have any kids?"

"No, no kids. And I wasn't married either—in case that's your next question." Kate offered her a smile and then took a step closer. "How old are you? I'm twenty-seven—well, twenty-eight almost."

Surprisingly, Alexis's eyes brightened. "Really? When's your birthday."

"November 17th"

"Oh…Mine's in a week; I thought your birthday might be closer to mine. I'll be twelve."

"Twelve." Kate echoed, trying not to sound too shocked. She could hardly imagine living in this world at such a tender age; it certainly would have rocked her to her very core. "You're very brave to do all this by yourself."

She shrugged. "My dad always told me to be brave."

Kate frowned. "But he's not with you anymore, is he?" When Alexis shook her head Kate said, "Well, neither is mine—so we have that in common, too. Now, can we go and see your grandmother?"

The young girl gazed at her with cautious optimism. "Do you think you can help her?"

Taking three steps forward, Kate finally closed the distance between them and bent over so she could look Alexis in the eye. "I don't know, Alexis, but I promise you that I'm going to try."

Alexis stared at her for almost a full minute before she rounded her shoulders and nodded. "Okay; follow me."

* * *

"Well, bottom's up!" Richard Castle said to no one in particular as he held a pickle jar in the air momentarily before tipping the last remaining contents into his mouth and trying his best not to gag. The taste was terrible, but as it was the closest thing to food he'd had in a day he also didn't think he had an option. Once he swallowed the juice he crammed two stale crackers into his mouth, not sure what tasted worse.

Groaning, he bent over and picked up his duffel bag and headed back out of the house and on to the main road. Unfortunately, the group of houses he'd found had been well picked through. He managed to pick up a spare set of clothing and, perhaps even more importantly, another pair of shoes in his size that seemed to have a decent amount of cushioning, but sadly not very much food. Other than the solitary pickle in juice and the crackers he'd found one can of mustard-packed sardines. Seeing as sardines easily made it into the top three of his most hated foods ever Castle considered leaving the can behind, but knew he shouldn't in case he found no other alternatives; however, he would only eat them if he faced no other option other than starving to death.

Without much hope in his heart, he entered the last home on the block and found it in a similar state of disarray. In fact, considering two of the kitchen cabinet drawers were ripped off their hinges, it was in a worse state than some of the others. Naturally, the kitchen was bare, but he continued to poke around hoping that one of the homes residents hid their snacks someplace creative.

As Castle explored the living area, he discovered a photograph that made his heart ache in his chest. Though the little girl holding a long-eared rabbit in the picture bore little resemblance to his daughter, they did have the same orange-red hair which was enough to trigger a flood of memories in his mind. Eighty-six days had passed since he'd seen her and not one of them went by without her crossing his mind a dozen times. He had no idea if she was okay, if she had enough to eat, or even if she was still alive. Worse was the fact that he knew it was very likely he might never see her again—at least, not unless something very drastic changed in the world. His only solace was that she was with his mother and he knew she would do whatever it took to keep Alexis alive. Still, with the unforgiving nature of the world in which they lived keeping Alexis safe may have been beyond the scope of her control.

Castle always believed himself to be a man of faith in the universe. He believed that somehow everything would right itself and thus he had to believe that even if he never saw her again, Alexis would be okay—that somehow, she and her grandmother would take care of each other. If he didn't believe that, he might find it difficult to put one foot in front of the other—to keep fighting, but he had to keep fighting because he knew it was possible that one day he'd be lucky enough to see her again.

* * *

 **A.N:** Thanks so much for reading & reviewing. I know zombie-au's aren't everyone's cup of tea, but i appreciate you giving it a shot!


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

"That's it; you're doing great—just a little further." Kate coached as she and the elder woman beside her slowly trekked up the hill towards the wooded area where her mother remained hidden. When discussing the trip they faced, the woman, Martha, had expressed concern over how weak she felt. In a rare moment of extreme optimism, Kate thought she might simply be exaggerating her weakened state as a warning or deterrent. As it turned out, that was not the case. Though Kate guessed the woman was no older than her mid-sixties, she moved as though she was two decades older.

Martha grunted as her foot slid on a patch of loose dirt. "This hill is much steeper than it looks like on the ground."

Kate strengthened her grip on the woman's arm, which was draped over her shoulders. "I know—but we're almost there."

"You can do it, Gran!"

Kate smiled inwardly when she heard the little girl's voice. Though she'd only known them for about fifteen minutes, she found the dynamic between grandmother and grandchild sweet. Both were clearly strong, fiery women—as evident through both their personalities and their orange-red hair—but also clearly came from a tightknit family dynamic. She even wondered if perhaps they lived together at some point during Alexis's youth; maybe as she got to know them she'd have the chance to find out.

"Oh!" Marth yelped when she pitched forward, taking Kate along with her. The elder woman fell to her knees while Kate remained standing, but only just. She squatted down and gripped Martha's waist even tighter to haul her back up again, but the move left both women panting. "Oh, Alexis, darling, I really don't know if-"

"Here, here let me."

Kate did not startle at the sound of her mother's voice, but the other two women did. Alexis took two steps back and Martha appeared to mimic a dear caught by headlights. Quickly, Kate said, "It's okay—this is my mother, Johanna." She had told the red-heads briefly about how she was traveling with a group that included her mother, but they hadn't chatted in much more detail as she'd wanted to keep moving since they never knew when danger could come upon them.

"Mom this is Martha and Alexis," she said, nodding to each in turn.

Johanna offered one of her lawyerly kind-but-businesslike smiles. "Nice to meet you both. I'll help you, okay?" she said to Martha. Without waiting for a response, Johanna picked up her other arm and mimicked her daughter's position by draping it over her shoulders. Then, together the two Beckett women half carried Martha the rest of the way up the hill.

Once back on flat ground, Martha took a few tentative steps forward then clutched both hands to her chest and feebly admitted. "I…oh, dear, I-I'm afraid I need to rest a bit before we go any further."

"That's okay," Kate assured her. She placed her hand on Martha's arm and guided her to the largest tree within arm's reach of them. She then helped lower the elder woman to the ground, so she could sit with her back against the tree. Alexis immediately dropped down beside her grandmother and Kate took a few steps back to give them space.

"She's sick?" her mother hissed into her ear.

She shook her head. "She doesn't have a fever—just says she feels tired and weak."

Johanna gave her a pointed look. "Abigail is not going to be happy about this."

Kate let out a mirthless laugh. "What else is new?"

Abigail Zamalek was the de-facto leader of the group Kate and her mother traveled with. Three months earlier when they'd first happened upon the cluster of survivors, it was Abigail and her husband Tom who interviewed them to see if they were worthy of accompanying their group on further travels. This, they said, was the same process they followed with anyone wishing to join for they only wanted to populate their group with those strong enough to make it through. The Zamalek's were far from warm and cuddly, but they were fair and seemed to have a survival plan. Thus, Kate felt comfortable traveling with them.

Unfortunately, only a few weeks later Tom and several others from their group were killed when they were attacked by a band of thieves, who clearly had no interest in maintaining any human decency. Abigail remained in charge after her husband's death, but his absence had turned her even more callus towards expansion. They had enough people to take care of, she said, but that did not stop Kate from inviting a woman and her two small children to join them when they'd found each other a few weeks back. Abigail had put her foot down, saying there would be no more, but Kate paid little attention. In those days when they faced more horrors than not, she believed it was their duty to help where they could, for if they gave up on being kind to strangers, there would be no society left to build upon even after all the monsters were vanquished.

Crouching down to the ground, Kate smiled at the two women and then asked, "How are you feeling now, Martha?"

"Well, I…" She shut her eyes and leaned her head back against the tree for a few moments before giving her head a little shake. Looking back to Kate she said, "I'm afraid I'm going to need to rest a little longer before we continue."

Kate bit down on her bottom lip and thought for a moment. "Tell you what—why don't you guys rest and my mom and I will go down and pick up some of those great supplies Alexis found—how does that sound?"

The little girl's blue eyes flashed with a level of concern she should not have needed to have at her age. "You're going to leave us here?"

"Just for a few minutes. Our camp is about fifteen minutes that way, through those trees and from what we've seen this area is relatively safe. Do you have weapons?" she asked; both women shook their heads. Kate then dropped her knees to the ground, so she could kneel and straighten her torso, which enabled her to pull the knife from her belt. "Here," she said, holding it out to them, "Just in case. We'll be quick."

Martha took the knife with a soft, "Thank you," and Kate nodded to her. She pushed herself into a standing position and then joined her mother on the trek back down the hill.

"So, what's their story?" Johanna asked once they were far enough out of earshot.

"I don't know much, but they're from Manhattan, too. They were separated from their group maybe a month ago they said, and they've been on their own ever since," Kate explained, repeating the brief amount of information she'd obtained from the red-headed pair before they began their trek out of the neighborhood.

"And you're sure the grandmother wasn't bit?"

Kate gave a little shrug as she shook her head. "She says she wasn't. Besides, she seems more frail-weak than fever-weak don't you think?"

Johanna pressed her lips together tightly as she considered this. "Possibly, but she doesn't look like she's that old."

"Well, regardless, we have to try and help them." Seeing as they had just met, it was possible if not likely that Martha had not been completely truthful about her health problems. If that was the case, Kate could not entirely blame her. She also accepted that Martha might never tell her the truth, but that was okay too; as long as Martha hadn't been attacked by the undead, and thus posed a danger to others, Kate didn't need to know why she was sick, only that they needed assistance that she could provide.

"C'mon—let's just get these supplies so we can get back to camp."

Johanna nodded and swept her hand towards the neighborhood before them. "Lead the way."

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, both of their backpacks stuffed to the brim with a variety of usable goods, Kate and her mother returned to the top of the hill to find Martha and Alexis in the exact position in which they'd left them. "Feeling better?" Kate asked optimistically of the elder woman.

"Good enough."

"Great!" Kate reached out her hand to help, but Martha was able to stand on her own and slowly move away from the hill and in the direction of camp that Kate pointed towards.

"I hear you ladies are also from Manhattan," Johanna said as they continued to walk.

"Gran was an actress!" the little girl reported excitedly.

Her grandmother chuckled and shook her head in a wistful manner. "That was another time, dear."

"Were you in anything we might have seen?"

"Perhaps. I did my fair share of theatre over the years, but I'm afraid none of that matters anymore. What did you ladies do back home?"

"We're lawyers," Johanna said.

Martha's brow rose, and she clearly appeared impressed. "Wow. Two strong, intelligent women—no wonder you're thriving out here."

Kate laughed a bit more boisterously than was probably appropriate. "I don't know about thriving. Surviving," she said as a more accurate descriptor, though sometimes even that felt an exaggeration. True, at that particularly moment they had a safe place to sleep, a decent amount of food and water, and a few weapons with which to protect themselves, but they were far from thriving. Running out of food or water was always a possibility—and had happened several times in the past, leading to terrifying times. They still didn't have a plan for winter other than migrating further south and hoping for the best. And then, of course, there was the continuous looming threat from the undead monsters hellbent on human destruction. Kate very much doubted they would be "thriving" any time soon.

"Well, you're doing better than most," Martha said.

"We're very lucky," Johanna concluded.

Giving her a small smile, Martha said, "And now so are we."

* * *

"What the hell is this?"

Kate didn't even flinch when Abigail's harsh tone hit her ears; she'd been expecting it from the moment their tents came into view. Setting her expression, she turned back over her shoulder to meet her mother's gaze. "Go," she said in a hushed tone. "Take them to our spot; I got this." Her mother nodded and then guided Martha and Alexis in a direction that would hopefully be out of earshot. Kate then walked over to the woman with black hair and a stern expression.

"You were supposed to be scavenging for food and supplies."

"And we found both." Kate shrugged one shoulder out of her backpack and rotated the sack around so it was facing the front of her body. Then, she tugged at the already straining zipper to display just how full of precious goods the sack was. "There's more, too; we'll go back later to pick it up.

"Then who the hell are they?" Abigail demanded, pointing towards the red-headed duo. "We talked about this—no more strays."

Kate stepped forward and lowered her voice. "The girl is eleven years old and her grandmother is sick; I wasn't just going to-"

"Sick!"

"Not that kind of sick," she clarified. "She…we don't know what's wrong with her. She just says she's run down; she probably just needs a rest."

Abigail folded her arms over her chest. "They can't stay."

"If-"

"They can't stay," she repeated before Kate could utter one more syllable of her argument. "We're moving on tomorrow—without them."

Kate wasn't at all shocked by that being Abigail's final word before she walked off; she had anticipated a similar if not exact reaction, but she also knew their discussion was far from over. She imagined a very heated argument was pending, but they did not need to have it at that exact moment.

Turning, Kate began to make her way through the carefully placed camp sites until she reached the one she shared with her mother. She saw that her mother had already distributed water bottles and snacks so she asked, "Settling in okay?" with a pleasant smile.

"Is this your whole group?" Alexis asked while craning her neck to gaze around the encampment.

Kate rotated her body around in a full circle as she observed the immediate area. "Yeah, it looks like everyone made it back."

"Where are the boys?"

Kate pressed her lips together tightly. The distinct lack of adult men would have been obvious to anyone who came across them, but it made sense that Alexis had not hidden her inquiry more than a few moments after arrival. Feeling that the true explanation was not exactly child-friendly, Kate quickly came up with a partial truth to satisfy her inquiry. "Well, about two months or so ago we ran into some bad people who wanted to take everything we had and, as a result, it's just us ladies now."

The mercenaries had killed every man who attempted to defend the women, children, and what little supplies they possessed. In the end, every male over the age of ten perished, and they'd lost half their food and water, too. They had been allowed to keep their tents—something the evil men presented as a gift of generosity—but such a comment made Kate feel even sicker as they struggled to dig five graves—even if she was glad not to have to sleep fully exposed at night.

Looking to her grandmother, Alexis said, "Maybe those are the same men that took Dad."

"I don't know how likely that would be, Alexis."

Kate processed their exchange with a raised eyebrow. When she'd first met Alexis, the girl's comments made her think her father had died, but perhaps Kate had made an incorrect assumption. "Was your father captured?" she asked.

The girl nodded. "Some bad men were blocking a bridge and they stopped us when we tried to cross. Dad tried to make a deal with them, but it didn't work. He thought we were in danger, so he told us to run, that he'd catch up with us later, but he never did."

Kate felt her heart clench at the girl's sad tale. "I'm sorry to hear that." Sad as it was, though, Kate thought that perhaps Alexis had been lucky. Whether or not her father remained alive was still up for debate, but at least the girl could hope. If she had witnessed her father's murder…well, things would be very different.

"We've been doing alright, right Alexis?"

She smiled at her grandmother. "Yeah."

"Well," Kate said, rocking back on her heels so she could stand and gesture for her mother to do the same. "Why don't we let you two keep resting while we go back for more supplies?"

"I can help!" Alexis said, popping to her feet.

Kate smiled at her. "You've been a big help already, Alexis; you should just stay here and relax." She still wasn't sure how long Martha had been sick, but she guessed it had been for more than a few days, which meant Alexis had probably been doing the majority of the scavenging work. Though she was clearly a strong, independent girl, she was still only eleven years old—a child—and she deserved a break if one could be offered to her.

"Don't worry about us," Johanna chimed in, "we'll be back before you know it."

* * *

"She's great, you know," Kate said to Martha, refencing the little girl who had lit up their evening with her stories and charm. Alexis had been sent to bed a few minutes earlier by her grandmother, who also seemed like she could barely hold her head up. Johanna had gone off in hopes of finding something that might help her sleep despite her only choice of mattress being the hard ground.

Martha gazed wistfully at the tent several feet away before smiling at Kate. "Ah, yes. My son excelled at many things, but being a father was high on the list."

Unable to suppress her curiosity, Kate asked, "Is what she said true? About what happened to him, I mean."

She nodded sadly. "Most of it. We were crossing a bridge as she said. When our path was blocked, Richard believed he could talk our way through since he made his career using his talent with words. Those terrible men…they weren't interested in money or jewels or even what little food we had; they wanted Alexis."

"God," Kate breathed out as she felt her stomach flip in her gut; how despicable.

"As my son would have sooner died than let any harm come over us, he pretended like he was saying goodbye to her and told us to run. That's the last we ever saw him."

"But you got away?"

"Yes, though I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't."

Kate's heart clenched again. She had suspected as much with only knowledge of Alexis's version of the story. The true tale made Richard's survival seem much more unlikely. "I'm sorry."

"Thank you. Your father too, I assume?"

"No, no; he died long before any of this started." Kate informed her. Then wanting to change the subject she quickly asked, "Your son made his career with words? How so? Was he a journalist?"

"A mystery writer. Richard Castle."

"Oh, I love his books—sorry what are we talking about?" Johann asked as she rejoined them in front of the fire.

Kate let out a light laugh as she, too, was familiar with the books. "That's her son, mom; Alexis's father."

Johanna's eyes widened in surprise. "Really?"

"Indeed. He would certainly be thrilled to—to…" Martha's speech was cut off by a coughing spell. Kate quickly scrambled to find a bottle with enough water in it and pressed it into the elder woman's hands. Once she's stopped choking, Johanna passed the Tylenol PM she found over to her and both Beckett women tended to her until she'd swallowed the pill and her coughs had calmed down.

"How long have you been sick like this?" Johanna asked.

"Two days. I…I think I may be had a heart attack – a small one," she confessed in a pained voice.

Kate looked over to her mother, who appeared equally alarmed. "Did you have chest pain?"

"My left arm was hurting, and I was nauseous. I went to bed and then I…I just felt so weak the next morning but I…" She became momentarily silent as her gaze drifted towards the tent where the young girl slept. "I don't want her to worry."

"Of course not—but you should rest now," Johanna said.

She and Kate stood simultaneously so they could help the elder woman to her feet and guide her to the tent they would all be sharing. Before they reached the entrance, Martha turned to Kate wide-eyed and said, "You'll take care of her, won't you? Alexis."

Once again Kate looked at her mother before answering. "Don't worry about that now you-"

"Please," she begged, gripping onto Kate's forearm with surprising strength. "Please say you will."

"Of course, Martha," Kate promised her, "but for now you just need to rest."

Martha nodded and lowered herself to the ground so she could slip inside the open tent flap. Just before she did, she glanced back over her shoulder. "Thank you both so much."

"Of course," Johanna responded, but the silent look she sent her daughter didn't make either of them feel any more confident.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Tip-toeing over downed leaves and twigs, Kate approached the red-headed girl in the same way one might approach a jumper on a ledge. Of course, Alexis sat on a rock with her feet firmly planted on the earth, not on the edge of a twenty-story high-rise, but Kate felt equally as uncertain. After all, she had barely known the girl for twenty-four hours and, well, things had degraded quickly in that time.

"Alexis," Kate said her name softly mostly to announce the fact that she was approaching. She took two more steps and the crouched down to be more eye-level with the girl. In her right hand she held out a small bottle. "Do you want some water?"

The girl's voice was nearly invisible when she responded, "No." She sat with her arms tightly over her chest and her chin turned downwards. Kate frowned when she made no effort to even take the bottle.

"It's a really warm day—you have to drink a little bit. I'll just leave this here for you, okay?" Kate duck-walked forward until she could place the bottle by Alexis's foot and then she quickly backed several steps away, not wanting to crowd her.

"Thanks."

"Sure."

Kate remained frozen for another minute just in case Alexis had something else to say to her, but she remained unmoving. With a deep exhale, Kate turned to walk away, her heart breaking for the third time that day and she very much doubted things would get any better as time went on.

The prior night, once Martha and Alexis were settled in their tent, Kate and her mother discussed how the night would go. Their tent was too small to sleep four people. Three was even a stretch, but with Alexis being small it could be managed. Sleeping outside of the tent was dangerous even with how populated their camp was, so Kate and her mother agreed to split the time with Johanna taking first shift. Kate slept by the tent entrance so it was easier for her mother to wake her in the middle of the night so they could switch places.

Just as dawn was beginning to break Kate realized she'd nodded off while sitting outside the tent because she was startled awake by a high-pitched squeal. She jumped to her feet, searching for the source only to discover that it was behind her; the scream had come from inside the tent. Evidently, Alexis had woken up and been unable to rouse her grandmother, which had her crying out.

Kate and her mother scrambled to address the situation while a crowd formed outside their camp area. Though neither of them had any medical training or knowledge they did their best to check Martha's vital signs to confirm she was, in fact, alive, but all attempts to rouse her back into consciousness were unsuccessful. When they ultimately looked at Alexis and told her they were sorry but there was nothing more they could do, the girl sprinted from the tent in tears.

Once Alexis was out of earshot, Kate and her mother discussed the situation and agreed the most likely scenario was that Martha had another heart attack in her sleep and had slipped into a coma. If that was the case, without proper hospital care she surely would not live much longer. There was nothing that could be done for her, but at least if she was in a coma she was not in pain. Johanna then took on the task of informing the group of the situation while Kate went after Alexis. The girl hadn't gone far, but had requested to be left alone, which Kate respected for two hours, but now it appeared Alexis still wished for time to herself and Kate couldn't really blame her.

At the tender age of eleven Alexis had suffered far more than many twice her age. She had experienced a near apocalyptic event and lost her father along the way. She'd struggled to find food, water, and shelter, and now she was about to lose her grandmother, her only remaining family. As she still knew little about them, Kate wasn't sure if Alexis's mother had passed away or her parents had simply been separated by divorce, but either way Alexis had little chance of finding her mother then even if she was alive.

"Kate."

Kate jumped when she heard someone call out her name. She turned her head to see that Abigail was approaching and cursed under her breath. She had no idea what conversation they were about to have, but she knew it would be a frustrating one.

"I just finished speaking with your mother, and she told me that I needed to have this discussion with you as well. I hope I'm not about to say something you don't already know but: this situation is only going to end terribly."

Kate nodded grimly. "I understand that; there is very little likelihood of Martha waking up now, I imagine."

"Precisely, which means she poses an imminent danger to all of us; she could die at any time and then she could come back."

With very little official knowledge on the subject, it was difficult to know for certain how all the monsters came to be. One thing they could all agree on was if a person died of the feverous illness that began this whole ordeal, it was certain they would come back. If a person died from other means, such as a heart attack or falling and hitting their head on a rock, whether they would return as an undead creature was more up for debate. Kate hadn't witnessed such an incident herself, but she'd heard the rumors and they seemed concrete enough that she definitely was not going to volunteer to sleep in the same tent as Martha that night.

"I know."

Abigail nodded. "So then you agree that the woman needs eliminated before she becomes a-"

"Whoa—what?" Kate interrupted. "N-no. No! I don't agree to that. She—we… She's still breathing, Abigail. We can't kill her."

"We have no other choice."

"I…" Kate's voice drifted off and she glanced over her shoulder to the young girl who remained seated in the exact same position. Her heart clenched at mental image of a conversation with Alexis in which they explained what needed to be done. Suppressing a shiver, Kate said, "Look—it's not even mid-day yet. We have time. She…she might pass on her own."

A deeply perturbed expression crossed Abigail's face. She stared Kate down for almost a full minute before saying, "You have until dusk."

"Wait," Kate said when Abigail turned to walk away. "If we do this, Alexis has to stay with us now. We can't send an eleven-year-old off on her own." As cruel as Abigail could be, Kate doubted she would inflict what would essentially be a death sentence on a child, but she wanted verbal confirmation as it would be the only positive thing to happen that day.

Abigail nodded tersely. "She's the last one Kate—I'm serious."

"Yeah, I know," she breathed out quietly, not having any intent to promise something she wasn't certain she would sick to. If they ran across another family that needed help, Kate would help them; no questions asked, but she would cross that bridge only when necessary.

Several minutes of walking later, Kate returned to their camp site to find her mother crouching over Martha's body where it lay in the tent. "Any change?" she asked.

Johanna shook her head. "Abigail spoke with you, I assume."

"Yes."

"I hate to admit it, but she's right. If Martha died overnight…"

"I know, but she's alive right now. How can…how could we…she's—she's still a person," Kate croaked out, emotion evident in her voice at the end.

Johanna frowned and slid over to where her daughter was at the entrance of the tent. She pulled her into a strong hug and rocked her gently back and forth saying, "I know, sweetheart; I know."

The woman held each other tight for several moments before Johanna pulled back, kissed Kate's forehead, and spoke to her softly. "I hate this, too, but we have to think of the safety of the whole group. We can't sentence all these women and children to death at the risk of trying to save someone who most likely isn't going to make it."

Kate sniffed. "I know that."

Johanna brushed a tear away from her cheek. "You did a good thing, Katie. You found Alexis in time to save her. And, you know…" She glanced over her shoulder towards the unconscious woman before turning back to Kate. "I think maybe Martha knew; she knew she wasn't going to make it and she was waiting until Alexis was safe before she let go."

After sniffling some more over such heart wrenching sentiments, Kate sighed out, "But what are we going to say to Alexis? How are we going to tell her?"

"We'll explain it to her. She's eleven. She'll-"

"Don't say understand." Kate cut her off with surprising sharpness. "Even I'm struggling at almost twenty-eight. I just, I…I need to get some air, okay?" Her chest felt like it was being crushed under the overwhelming emotions she was experiencing. Ending the life of someone who was still breathing… Throughout her mind flashed the word "murder," though rationally she knew defining it as such was taking far too black-and-white a view of a situation that had nothing but gray. If they ended Martha's life, it would be ending her suffering while also saving the group from danger. It was clearly the right thing to do, but when it came right down to it, it tore her up inside and she needed time to process.

"Don't go far, okay?"

"No, I…I won't. I promise." With that, Kate stood, checked to make sure her knife was securely in her belt, and then headed off into the trees so she could have some time to herself to process.

* * *

The first thing Richard Castle was aware of when he woke up was the agonizingly hollow feeling in his gut. He groaned, moved his left hand to cover his aching belly, and wished to fall back to sleep, but he could not. In those days, obtaining food was not as easy as walking to the corner bodega or picking up the phone and ordering delivery. Finding even the most meager or unappealing of scraps had become an arduous chore—one he was dangerously failing at.

The prior day Castle had searched until it was too dark to see any more, but his only success had been the can of sardines, which he'd regretfully choked down before going to bed knowing it was better than nothing. Now, he truly had no food in his pack, which meant he needed to get up and get moving; it would be the only way he could continue to survive.

After picking up the bag with his tarp and change of clothing, Castle threw the strap over his shoulder and exited the house he'd spent the night in. Outside against the front porch sat the bicycle he'd snatched up as a means of easier travel. Though he tried most of the cars he came across, vehicles unfortunately did not always make for a practical means of travel. On his trek from New York he'd used a handful of vehicles, but ultimately always found his path blocked either by a downed tree or other immovable vehicles, particularly in the congested areas around big cities. Bikes, however, were much easier to move around on, though they did come with the downside of requiring physical exertion, but biking was quicker than walking, so he decided to ride for a while.

As he exited the neighborhood he'd found the prior day, Castle once again cursed under his breath. He'd been certain he'd find something to eat in one of those houses, but they'd all been trashed quite thoroughly by others. Since he was still so close to Washington, D.C. it made sense, but that didn't make his situation any less frustrating.

For the next hour he rode, stopping at every house he passed along the way in search of supplies, but all were bare. In one of the houses he did find a map in the garage, which he studied for several minutes before folding and slipping into his back pocket. Castle theorized that part of the trouble he had in finding supplies was that he was traveling too many main roads. Surely, other travelers before him had also traveled these roads and thus snatched up all consumable goods. His reason for traveling those main roads had simply been fear of getting lost or unknowingly traveling in circles, but with the map he believed he would be able to move off the well-beaten path to find food while still traveling the correct direction southward.

When the sun was at its highest point in the sky and thus the day was the warmest, Castle pulled his bike off the road and sat down in the shade beneath a robust tree to rest for an hour. As he had no liquids to drink yet that day and was already sweating from the ride, he did not want to dehydrate himself too much. He figured he could rest for an hour or so and then keep moving.

While seated beneath the tree, the soft rustling of the tree leaves above him evidently lulled Castle to sleep, for the next thing he knew, he heard voices and opened his eyes with a gasp. For a moment, he thought he'd been dreaming, but then he saw a sliver truck parked along the road with two men standing by the front of the vehicle. Castle quickly popped to his feet.

"Yo man," the darker-skinned of the two men said with a half-laugh. "We thought you were dead!"

"No, no—not dead!" Castle called back to the men who appeared to be no older than in their early twenties.

"Shit—you're lucky; we were about to shoot you."

"Ah…" he hesitated, not sure how to respond. "Glad I woke up then. Where you guys headed? South?"

"Maybe," the other man, a blonde with narrow eyes, replied. "You?"

He nodded and took a step forward. "Yeah. Listen, I-"

"Whoa hold on there, pops." The darker-skinned man said as he pulled a revolver from the waist band of his jeans.

Castle immediately hopped back and held his arms up in goal post stance. "There's no need for that; I don't mean any harm—and I'm not armed."

"Lift up your shirt and turn around so we can see."

Castle did as they asked stating, "I have a screw driver in my belt; that's all." He understood their need to check, but he was clearly not in a state to attack them, particularly not when he was outnumbered. "Actually I'm—oof!"

Castle grunted when he rotated around only to be met with a sucker punch to the gut delivered by the blonde. He doubled over, dropping to his knees, but before he could attempt to defend himself verbally, he felt a swift kick to his right side that sprawled him out on the ground. When he felt another foot connect with his back, he instinctively curled in the fetal position to protect his face and neck. He attempted to call out and beg them to stop, but it was no use.

The attack continued for several more moments before one of the goons called out, "Fuck you, asshole," with in an upsettingly amused tone. Not sure what harm would befall him if he did not, Castle remained frozen on the ground until he heard the truck's engine roar to life and the sound disappear off into the distance. Only then did he feel it was safe to lift his head.

Though it should not have surprised him, he still gasped and cursed when he discovered his bag was missing, evidently stolen by the assholes who didn't even bother to see if it contained any valuable supplies, which it did not unless they were desperate for a Phillips head screwdriver or a tarp. He cursed again when he tried to get up on his hands and knees only to feel excruciating pain coursing through his back and his left wrist. He crawled closer to the tree and used it as support to stand. In doing so, he took note of the duo's parting gift: the front tire of his bicycle was broken.

Castle cursed again and leaned heavily against the tree trunk. He'd long-since given up trying to understand why human decency had evaporated from some the moment things began to fall apart. He fought the urge to curse, cry, or express any other sort of emotion knowing it would do him no good. He needed food. He needed water. He needed shelter. And, if he didn't get at least two of those things before the days' end, he knew his time left on the planet would quickly be coming to an end.

* * *

 **A.N** : I suppose I should have put a "minor character death" warning in the first chapter, so sorry for those of you who are upset i did not.

but i do appreciate your continued support of this story!


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

 **November**

"Be safe, okay honey?"

Kate smiled as she accepted the empty rucksack from her mother's extended hand. "I'll be fine, Mom; I've done plenty of supply runs before."

Johanna gave a little shrug. "I know, and I worry every time."

In a move that felt very reminiscent of her first days of school, Kate swung the bag's strap over her right shoulder then leaned in to kiss her mother's cheek. "We'll be back by dusk if not before."

Her mother nodded. "Okay, see you; love you."

"Love you, too."

With that, Kate turned to walk back out towards the road were Abigail waited with two others and the truck they'd acquired. The truck had an extended cab and would seat the four of them comfortably, possibly even a fifth, but Abigail said she only wanted three others to tag along and the rest should remain behind. The prior day they had narrowly missed encountering another group of survivors with unknown intent, so she thought it best for a larger group to stay behind with the children and Kate couldn't say she disagreed.

Before she was halfway to the clearing Kate was intercepted by a petite red-head running up to her and saying, "If you find any chocolate, you'll bring it back for me, won't you?"

Kate playfully tapped the girl's nose with her index finger and said, "If I don't eat it first." She let a beat go by before continuing with, "Of course; the three of us will split it."

"Thanks Kate," Alexis said before scampering off where she and the other children were seated for their make-shift school lessons. Kate smiled softly at the group before continuing her trek towards the truck.

A little more than a month had passed since Alexis's grandmother, Martha, had died and the girl was finally starting to have more good days than bad. In the immediate aftermath, Kate and her mother had practically dragged Alexis kicking and screaming away from where they had buried her. For several days Alexis only ate or drank with extreme coaxing and barely spoke more than a handful of words. While Kate and her mother tried all that they could, Abigail insisted that if she didn't start acting like a member of their team they would leave her behind. Kate chose to believe Abigail would not make good on such a threat, but it made her feel sick all the same.

About a week after her grandmother's passing Alexis began to come around. She ate meals with the group and even smiled a few times at some of the silly things the smaller children did. Kate and her mother were able to get Alexis to open up more about her past and by the one month mark she seemed almost happy to be with them. Though she certainly had moments when she cried or seemed genuinely sad about the fact that she was no longer traveling with her family Kate could tell she appreciated everything they did for her, and that was enough. In time, she hoped they would see more of her real personality, more of her spunk, because from what Kate could tell Alexis was a very interesting little girl.

"You with us, Kate?"

"What—I'm sorry." She apologized when she realized the truck and stopped in the parking lot of an abandoned strip mall. "Sorry—I'm paying attention."

"Good." Abigail gave her a snide look before doling out instructions. "Mary, you check out that restaurant. Peg, you look at the nail salon, the dry cleaners, and whatever that other office is—they probably don't have anything but might as well check. When you're done, you can join Kate and I in the pharmacy."

The women agreed to Abigail's plan though Kate frowned inwardly that she and Abigail were going to the same location. When they went their separate ways, Kate found the glass front door to the pharmacy was already broken in, which wasn't surprising but also not a great sign that they'd be very successful.

"You watch out here while I check inside; I'll give you the clear," Abigail said while stepping into the store, gun at the ready. The revolver had been discovered a week earlier, hid beneath the front seat of the truck they'd commandeered. Abigail and her husband had several weapons when Kate joined their group, but all were taken by the mercenaries who had killed the men. Though Kate wasn't a huge fan of guns, when it came to those monsters sometimes shooting from afar was the best option.

"Clear!"

Kate stepped inside and found the shelves heavily ransacked near the front of the store, but the back seemed rather untouched, with led her to believe whomever was stealing had been interrupted. Smiling to herself, Kate though that maybe she'd be able to find some candy after all.

"Come back here—help me with this."

She followed the sound of Abigail's voice to the corner of a store that appeared to have groceries and, miraculously, seemed well stocked. It seemed Abigail had grabbed an empty cardboard box from somewhere and was stacking cans of soup, fruit, and vegetables inside. Kate joined her and when they'd filled the box to the brim, they lifted it together and carried it out to the bed of the truck.

Once back inside, they separated again. Kate casually perused some of the aisle, picking up a box of adhesive bandages and a container of antiseptic cream and slipping them in her backpack. When she encountered a very full aisle of feminine hygiene supplies, she said aloud, "Jackpot!" Being that she travelled with a group that included nearly a dozen adult women, tampons and pads were nearly as important to them as food and water.

Kate quickly looked around for a cardboard box, but found none. Instead, she found a large plastic storage bin that was actually better because it would be water-proof when the lid was on. She emptied the shelves, filled a bin, carried it to the truck, and then returned to collect the remainder of the supplies. In the shelf just above the tampons she discovered two boxes of condoms and threw them into her backpack with a shrug. She had never discovered birth control pills in a pharmacy they'd come across before, and didn't have high hopes for that one either. With no men in their group a lack of contraception was not an immediate problem, but just because they had no men at that moment did not mean they would never encounter another male again in their lifetime. Thus, she collected the condoms in case someone wanted to use them for a tryst that would be a temporary escape from their horrible reality.

"Amazing find here, right?" Abigail said as she carried an armload of supplies towards the exit, a rare smile on her face.

Kate gave a half smile and nodded. "Absolutely."

"Why don't you check in the back to see if there are more boxes to use?"

"Okay."

She strolled her way towards the back of the store but froze as she passed the end of an aisle that appeared to have red and white plastic packages hanging in it. She nearly did a double-take when she realized those packages contained hard candies, because where there was hard candy there was chocolate! Hurrying into the aisle Kate began frantically searching for something that was not a peppermint or butterscotch disc, but disappointingly found many of the display boxes empty. She did find Peanut M&Ms and a Mounds bar that had been left behind, but nothing overly exciting. Just as she was reaching out for the peppermint candies, she heard a scream from out in the parking lot.

"Hey! Stop!"

Her heart seizing in her chest, Kate sprinted for the door, leaping over downed merchandise displays in her haste to find out what was going on.

"Freeze, asshole, or I'll drop you where you stand!"

Kate easily identified the second voice as Abigail's and cursed under her breath. They hadn't come face-to-face with another group of survivors in quite some time. From what it sounded like, there was only one person, but given Abigail's attitude and how protective Kate knew she'd be over their newfound goods, she feared this encounter wouldn't end well.

When Kate stumbled through the glass door of the pharmacy her eyes immediately went to the truck where Abigail stood a few feet away from the driver's side door, weapon gauntleted in her fists. The gun was pointed towards the back of the truck, but Kate could not see who was there because the cab blocked her view. She quickly glanced back down the row of shops to see Mary, who presumably had sounded the alarm, standing a few feet away, and Peg just emerging from the nail salon looking very confused.

"What's going on?" Kate called out loud enough for Abigail to hear.

She did not take her eyes off her target but called back, "This piece of shit is trying to steal from us."

"No…no I'm wasn't—I'm sorry."

Kate distantly heard a male voice. She felt perspiration immediately against her hairline. A man—a man had tried to steal from them. That definitely wasn't good.

Quickly, Kate rushed over to the truck so she could fully assess the situation. When she walked around behind Abigail she saw for the first time the figure of a man barely two feet behind the truck. He wore torn, dirty jeans and what appeared to be a black crew-neck sweatshirt. He faced away from them with his arms out at his sides though Kate could see that something was clutched in his right hand. The man's arms began to lower, and Abigail shouted, "One more move, fucker, and I'll-"

"Stop," Kate hissed to her; Abigail shot her a glare. Kate ignored this and took two steps forward moving her between Abigail and the strange man. She was not completely blocking Abigail's view, but she was a close enough disruption that she believed Abigail would not shoot around her. "Sir, can you please turn around—slowly?"

"I'm sorry. I…I can just go. You—you just had so much that I thought if I just took one…I only wanted one…"

Kate's heart clenched when she caught a glimpse of this man's haggard face and straggly brown beard streaked with a few stands of gray. His hair appeared similarly: unkempt and probably dirty, not that any of them had been to a salon recently. She didn't know where this man was from or how long he'd been on the road, but that didn't matter. They could spare one can; the pharmacy had more than enough food to sustain them.

She moved to take another step towards him, but almost instantly Abigail growled at her, "Don't. Don't even think about it."

"Here, I…I'll even put it back," the man said weakly, taking a step towards the bed of the truck only to have three women scream, "NO!" in his direction. Clearly startled, the man dropped the can. It landed on the ground with a 'thunk' and rolled in Kate's direction. She lifted her right foot to stop it when it came near and gazed down at it; it was a can of cut green beans.

"I…I'll go now. I'll just-"

"Don't move! Don't you dare fucking move," Abigail commanded even as the man tried to back away. Though he wasn't directed to do so, he dropped to his knees on the pavement and Kate believed she heard him sniff back some tears.

Anger searing through her chest at such unkind not to mention unnecessary behavior, Kate turned to Abigail and said, "Enough; he's not a threat."

"You don't know that," she hissed back. "Besides, you know the rule; we shoot all men on sight."

Kate tried her best not to let disgust show on her face. Yes, she was well aware of the rule Abigail put into place after her husband's death. Given what had happened, Kate completely understood being wary of strange men, particularly if there was a group of them, but killing them? Murder? If they became killers, they would be no better than the men who had killed Abigail's and Peg's husbands so many months back. They would be the problem, not the solution. They could—and should—be cautious, suspicious. Hell, she'd even be okay with straight up untrusting, but killing? Killing was never the answer.

"He's on his knees."

"There could be others just waiting to strike."

Kate considered this as a possibility for a moment, but that didn't seem likely. If this man was a decoy for an ambush, certainly the group would have already attacked as they had their focus on him for several minutes. No, she didn't think this man was up to no good. He was just alone and searching—just like they were.

"Sir? What's your name, sir?"

"R-Rick."

"Do you have any weapons on you, Rick?"

"There's a screw driver in my belt."

Kate blinked, not really considering a screw driver a weapon, but then she supposed it could be used to stab someone. "Put it on the ground and then stand up—slowly." She instructed. He did as she asked and then when he was standing looked at her for further instruction. She nodded towards the vehicle and said, "Put your hands on the truck and spread your feet; I'm going to search you."

"Okay."

Though Kate heard Abigail mutter something derisive under her breath, she ignored it and waited for the man to be in an appropriate stance before searching his pockets and his ankles like she'd seen done in movies; she found nothing. "You can turn around," she told him before taking a step back.

The man turned and for the first time Kate was able to see that he actually had piercing blue eyes, which might have been filled with joy or laughter in the past, but now simply appeared devastated and broken. "I…I didn't… I'm sorry if I upset you all, truly." The man looked at each of the women before turning back to Kate. "I was walking down that street and saw you bring that box of cans out to the truck. I just…it's been a while since I've found…" His voice cracked and he stopped speaking. After a moment, he cleared his throat, dropped his chin to his chest, and confessed. "I'm hungry; I'm just hungry."

Kate's chest seized with emotions as she remembered the two incidents when she and her mother had been exhausted, starved, and running low on water before they'd found Abigail's group. Without second thought she plunged her hand into the bag draped over her shoulder, pulled out the package of Peanut M&M's and held them out to him. "Here."

The man looked at the candy then back up to her face as though she was presenting him with a life-long treasured gift. "T-thank you," he said as he accepted them. The moment his hands closed around the candy bag, Kate heard Abigail hiss out her name and fought the urge to roll her eyes.

Whipping around, she stalked back to the woman with the gun, who was now flanked by the remaining members of their group, and said, "Look at him; he's not dangerous."

"We have no way of knowing that."

Shaking her head, Kate turned back to the man, half expecting him to be eating the bag along with the candy, but instead he merely cradled it gently in his hand as though one might hold a baby bird that had fallen from its nest. She knew that convincing the others to let Rick into the group would be a monumental task. When a scared little girl was at stake, the others in their group certainly would have overruled Abigail and sided with her, but she very much doubted that would be the case with a strange man. Still, she had to try, particularly with Rick looking so haggard, and so she decided to do so by trying to get to know him a little bit more first—to prove to everyone, herself included, that he was not a threat.

"So, ah, where are you from, Rick?"

"New York, originally."

"And are you headed someplace specific?"

He shrugged one shoulder. "No, just south for winter. Like the geese."

Kate cracked a small smile at this. "Well, maybe-"

"Stop. Enough of this." Abigail walked up beside Kate, gun still in her hand. A wide-eyed Rick backed up until his spine hit the truck bed and then he merely clutched the M&Ms to his chest.

"Abigail, if-"

"No—I'm serious, Kate; I've had enough. We'll let him go—fine, but he's not coming back with us. I said no more and I meant it."

Before Kate could argue any further, Rick spoke. "Please, don't get upset; there's no need. I just thought maybe I could get a little bit of food and now I have it, so I'll go. I promise you I'm alone out here. I was separated from my mother and daughter awhile ago and-"

"Wait." Kate interrupted him, her heart thundering a little harder in her chest. Surely…no—no! It wasn't possible, but she had to check. "Your mother and daughter? When did you get separated from them?"

"Oh…it's been months. We were still in New Jersey so I'm really not sure. Maybe early summer?"

Kate's heart stuttered; that was consisted with what she heard from Alexis and—shit! "Rick—that's short for Richard, isn't it?"

He blinked at her, clearly a little uncertain. "Um…yeah."

She actually laughed out loud from how astounding their situation was; it was practically a miracle. "Richard Castle?"

The man's jaw dropped open and hung for several moments before he stammered, "H-how…? How could you possibly have recognized me?"

"We have your daughter. That is—she's with us," Kate quickly corrected when she realized her first statement made it sound as though they'd taken her as a hostage.

Rick took a step forward and Kate watched as his knee buckled. He reached his left arm back to grab the truck for support and asked in a nearly invisible voice, "Alexis? You have Alexis?"

"Yes."

While Kate heard sounds of awe from Peg and Mary, she distinctly heard Abigail hiss, "Unbelievable…" in a very disgruntled tone; it made her smile even wider. Walking over to the man she now felt comfortable calling a friend, she placed her hand on his shoulder and guided him over so he could sit in the bed of the truck. "Here—sit down. Would you like some water?" She pulled the bottle from her rucksack and held it out to him, but he appeared too dazed to notice.

"I …I was so afraid they were dead."

Kate frowned at his use of the term 'they' for it meant she had some unfortunate news to break. "Actually, your mother did pass, Rick; I'm sorry."

He jolted and blinked rapidly as he gazed at her. "When? How? And how long have they been with you?"

She gave him a gentle smile. "Why don't I save that story for the ride back to our camp, okay? Just sit here, and eat your M&M's while we pack up the rest of the supplies."

"Okay. Wait." He grabbed her forearm when she moved to walk away, and she gazed at him curiously. "Thank you," he told her in the most genuine tone she'd ever heard.

She smiled easily. "You're welcome."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

"Our camp is just through those trees," Kate explained to the man sitting beside her when their truck finally came to a stop. They both jolted in their seats as Abigail pulled the truck off the main road in hopes that it would not be easily spotted from anyone passing by.

"Okay," Rick replied, his knee bouncing up and down vigorously as he sat, clearly impatient—not that she could blame him. She probably would have jumped out the truck's window by now if she was in his shoes.

As they drove back from the strip mall, which took about fifteen minutes, Kate briefed Rick on how she'd come to discover his mother and daughter, the events surrounding his mother's illness and death, and then what had been going on since that incident. Rick listened intently and asked very few questions, which she supposed was simply because he was taking it all in and trying to process. After all, despite the news being happy, she still imagined it was quite a shock for him.

"Ready to go find Alexis?" Kate asked when the truck came to a halt and the women began to clamber out.

"Y-yeah; absolutely," Rick replied. Kate nodded and waved for him to follow as she hopped down to the grass and began to trek through the woods. As she was familiar with the territory, she ended up moving much faster than him and when she realized she tried to slow herself down, but she was simply anxious for father and daughter to meet after so long.

She had almost reached their campsite when she spotted a blur of red hair whipping out from behind a tree as Alexis called out, "Kate! Did you find any candy?"

She smiled as her treat paled in comparison to chocolate. "Actually, I found something much-"

"Daddy!" Alexis's high-pitched shriek reverberated through the forest so loudly that Kate nearly jumped even though she anticipated such a reaction. Alexis sprinted past her and when Kate turned around she saw that Rick had dropped to his knees to catch his daughter in what was surely the most powerful hug they'd ever shared.

"Alexis! Oh sweetheart—you're alright. I missed you…"

As the father smothered his daughter's head in kisses, Kate felt a few tears prick the edge of her eyes and turned away so they could share a private moment. She continued to walk towards camp where she soon came face-to-face with her mother, whose jaw was dangling somewhere near the middle of her chest. She gaped at the scene over Kate's shoulder for several moments before turning to her daughter wide-eyed. "Wha—how!?"

Kate gave a little shrug as that was a question she could barely answer. "He found us." She then went on to explain what transpired on their run including Abigail's threat and the ultimate discovery of who Rick truly was. To this tale Johanna commented, "That's unbelievable."

A breathy laugh escaped Kate's lips for she felt such a comment was an understatement. "I know; I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it myself."

Johanna tore her gaze away from her daughter briefly to look at the other women returning from the supply run. Catching sight of one woman in particular, she shook her head. "I bet Abigail is mad."

"Oh, she's furious," Kate corrected, "but as soon as I figured out that Rick was Alexis's father, she had no choice but to let him come back with us; Peg and Mary were absolutely on my side."

Humming to herself, Johanna pressed her lips together for a moment before saying, "She's probably going to try and send them away."

Kate nodded as she had already considered such a scenario during the brief period of time she wasn't talking to Rick as they rode back. "I know, and I think I have a plan for that."

"Do you?"

She held up her left hand to display her index and middle fingers crossed. "I hope." Turning back around Kate saw that Rick and Alexis were now approaching, tears on both their cheeks. Alexis appeared to have a death grip around her father's left wrist and hand, but Kate didn't imagine he cared very much. "Ah, Rick this is my mother, Johanna; mom this is Rick Castle."

Johanna politely extended her hand and said, "I've always been a fan of your books, Mr. Castle."

He let out a breathy sound and dropped his chin to his chest. "Well, that's very kind of you to say, but there's no need to be that formal; please call me Rick."

"Well, why don't-" Kate's suggestion was interrupted by Abigail calling out her name. Turning in the direction of the sound she saw the stern-faced women beckoning her and cursed under her breath; the conversation she was dreading appeared to be happening far sooner than she would have liked. "Ah, well why don't you take Rick and Alexis back to our tent, Mom and I'll…go see what Abigail needs."

"Good luck," Johanna muttered to her before smiling at the Castle duo and pointing out which campsite was theirs.

Sucking in a deep calming breath, Kate walked back towards the truck where Abigail was waiting for her looking just as impatient as ever. She didn't even have a chance to come to Rick's defense before Abigail led with, "They're not staying here, Kate."

Huffing out a breath, Kate began, "I know you're resistant to-"

"No—this is not a discussion. The little girl has her father back now and that's…sweet," she said in a tone as though the word itself was gagging her. "They can be together now; I'm sure that's what they both want."

"But the thing is," Kate jumped in quickly before Abigail could walk away or rebut any further. "I understand your hesitance to let men in the group. Truly, I do, but don't you think its could be nice? I promise you that I'm the last person to buy into the idea of needing a big, strong man around the house, but sometimes its just practical. There as some things we are simply incapable of. Like that car last week—before we found the truck. It had almost a full tank of gas, but we couldn't move that damn tree branch off its hood."

"And you think he's Hercules? That he could have lifted that branch off with only his little finger?"

She fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Clearly not, but maybe with his help we could have managed it. Or, more practically—some of these women really struggle to carry their tents. I bet he could carry several and wouldn't even mind!"

Instead of attempting to argue, Abigail merely shut her down with a simple, "No."

"Well, then, maybe we need to put it to a vote."

Abigail's nostrils flared, and she leaned her face in close to Kate's. "If you want to be with him so badly nothing's stopping you from going, too."

"Maybe we will," Kate retorted with little thought; it was merely a reflex to the ridiculous obstacle she faced.

A derisive smirk crossed the stern woman's face and she said, "And here I thought you were a survivor." With that, she walked back to the truck leaving Kate fuming behind her.

In Kate's opinion, Abigail's mindset was pure ridiculousness. Not letting anyone travel with their group unless they were trustworthy was a reasonable stance to apply to anyone male or female, but this? This was simply absurd. By not letting Rick, or any other man, join their group simply because he was a man even though he could provide assistance was not only stupid, but dangerous—not to mention unfair to their fellow travelers. Though it was not her intent to volunteer him up as a packhorse, Rick would be able to carry things they couldn't being that he was a large-framed man. Kate had to believe that logically Abigail knew that and thus she hoped that given a cooling down period she would be able to convince her thusly.

Otherwise, she would need to invoke the less desirable Plan B, but she would cross that bridge only if she needed to.

* * *

"Okay, well, we have a few different things to eat; you can choose what you'd like best."

Castle almost laughed as he gazed up at the woman rummaging through bags tucked just inside a small tent. The concept of being able to choose what he could eat was almost unfathomable to him. For months he was stuck eating whatever items he came across that he didn't believe were poisonous. He had not been able to pick and choose for a very long time.

"Honestly, anything you're willing to part with will be fine. I already had some M&M's so I don't need much."

"Is that all you had to eat today, Daddy?"

Castle gazed down at her trying not to reveal the truth with his expression. His daughter sat beside him, her tiny hands still clamped tightly around his left forearm and, frankly, he wouldn't have had it any other way. Though they'd been apart for months, his fatherly instincts were still well intact, and he knew better than to frighten her by revealing that the M&Ms were the only thing he'd had to eat in days. "Well, I was busy sweetheart."

"You weren't hungry? You always eat more than me and I had granola, applesauce, and a protein bar!"

"Glad to hear it. I…oh, thank you." He was slightly startled to see Johanna pass out a cup of mixed fruit with a white plastic spoon sticking out of the top. He hadn't had fruit in ages!

"We've been trying to make sure the children have as well-balanced nutrition as we can give them," Johanna informed him softly. "But that's not always easy with what we find."

"Believe me; I understand." He brought the fruit cup up to his lips and drank some of the sweet juice; it tasted incredible! Just as he was about to try to balance the cup in his lap so he could use the spoon, he heard Johanna say, "Alexis, your father might want to use both hands to eat." Her tone wasn't scolding, but sounded more amused.

"I don't want to let go," she responded with a slight wine, her small fingers digging in even deeper.

Gazing down at her, Castle said, "I'm right beside you, pumpkin; you can loosen up a little bit." He stared at her for another few seconds before she relented and slid her hands back to the crook of his elbow. While her grip was still fairly tight, this movement did allow him to hold the fruit cup in his left hand so he could use the spoon with his right.

"I'm going to go help unload the supplies."

"Oh," Castle's gaze jumped up as Johanna took a step away. "I should-"

"Don't worry about it; just eat."

He remained uncertain until she gave him a firm nod before walking off. He definitely did not want these kind women to think he was mooching off them, but at the same time he was really, really hungry.

As he ate, Castle observed the small clearing in which the camp was set up. He saw perhaps a dozen tents separated by a few feet of space that generally contained children playing or adult women doing some sort of work. He saw one woman with a sewing needle who appeared to be mending an item of clothing and another one reading a book to a few pre-school-aged children. Strangely, he did not see any men, or any teenage boys. In fact, the oldest male he saw looked to be around eight years old. The struck him as very odd, but then he decided that perhaps a group of men was off scavenging for supplies like Kate's group was.

Once he finished his fruit he turned toward his daughter and brushed his right hand down the front of her shin. "You've been doing okay, sweetheart?"

She shrugged. "Kate and Jo are really nice, but I've missed Gran…and you." She leaned her head against his bicep and gave his elbow a tighter squeeze.

Castle dipped his chin so he could kiss the top of her head. Continuing to stroke her leg he said, "Kate told me what happened to Gran; I'm sorry you had to go through that alone, but I'm so proud of you, Alexis—doing all that you did by yourself."

She gazed up at him with the big blue eyes that made his heart melt every time. "I'm glad I don't have to be by myself anymore."

"Me too." Though nothing was a guarantee, Castle knew that he would fight as hard as he could to stay with his daughter from that point forward. If it became another life-or-death situation like what had separated the first time of course walking away from her would win, but he hoped to never face such a decision again. Being away from her for so many months was heartbreaking and had he not been actively trying to find an adequate amount of food and water to survive on, the despair might have done him in, but he didn't need to think about that anymore for they had been reunited by what he chose to believe was a miracle.

"Excuse me sir?"

Castle startled at the sound of an unfamiliar voice. Looking up he spotted a woman with mahogany brown hair and gray eyes who appeared to be around his age. "Yes? Hello."

"Hi. I just thought maybe you'd like these." She held out a stack of cloth and he took it a bit dumbly. "They belonged to my husband and you look about his size. Actually, they might be a little big, but you don't have any spares do you?"

"No, no I don't, but are you sure?"

She shrugged. "I don't have any use for them; they've just been taking up space in my bag."

"Well, thank you; I appreciate this What's your name?"

"Laura."

"Thank you, Laura. Sorry could I ask you…" His voice drifted off as he tried to find the best way to phrase his question. Though Laura's expression indicated she had no problem helping him, if what his gut was telling him was correct, his question could sour her. "The men in this group—they're not off scavenging somewhere are they?

She frowned. "We don't have any men with us right now."

Castle's gaze lowered to the clothes now balanced on his knee as Laura walked away. So, her husband was no longer with them as evident by the fact that he now had the man's clothes. And no men were traveling with the group, which seemed exceedingly odd given how many adult women he could see. Had all their partners succumbed to the virus? Well, no, that wouldn't be correct; if Laura's husband had died prior to her leaving her home, she surely wouldn't have brought the man's clothes with her.

Before his writer's imagination could spin any more scenarios, Alexis spoke up. "Kate said that bad men came and…well, I guess they all died."

"Were you with them!?" he asked with mild horror.

"No, she said it was a while ago."

Castle breathed out a sigh of relief; at least Alexis hadn't witnessed that on top of everything else. Still, if what she said was accurate, how horrible for all these women. Their husbands, boyfriends, sons, and fathers were killed not by the virus, not by the undead monsters, but other humans. Given everything he had experienced he couldn't say he was shocked, but the notion still nauseated him.

Turning his attention back to the clothing he now possessed, Castle leafed through the pile to find jeans very close to his regular size plus a t-shirt and hooded sweatshirt in size extra large. Laura had been quite correct in guessing his size. Well, the size he would have worn if he'd had regular access to food, but baggy clothes were better than clothes that were too tight or no clothes at all and he had experienced both.

"Okay, kiddo, you're going to have to loosen up so I can go and change."

"Nooo," Alexis whined and clung tighter to his arm, but Castle was steadfast.

"Yes. C'mon—I'll smell much better once I put these clothes on."

"Everybody smells."

He couldn't help but laugh at his daughter's accurate assessment. Given that the ability to shower was non-existent and he'd been struggling to find enough water to drink let alone waste washing his face or other body parts, Castle had never felt dirtier in his life and knew he also possessed the accompanying body odors that came with such a condition. Were he back in Manhattan—back in his regular life—he would have been horrified to go more than two (well, okay, maybe three if he was in his younger days) days without showering; it was funny how starvation and lack of shelter realigned one's priorities. Fortunately, he wasn't the only one in such a state. Alexis comment was quite correct; every adult seemed equally ripe.

"I said I'd smell better not that I wouldn't smell at all. C'mon—I'll be just behind those trees over there, okay?"

"Fine." The girl pulled her arms away from her father and tucked them tightly into her lap. Then, she turned her big puppy dog eyes up at him and added a pouty frown for good measure. The experienced father did not fall for such a move, but instead bopped her nose with his index finger before picking up the pile of clothes and wandering off until he felt he was at a safe distance to change.

Castle draped the clean clothing over a low tree branch and chose to change his pants first. He kicked off his shoes, pulled off his belt, and then let the filthy pants drop to his ankles before kicking them away. Given how long he'd been wearing them and that they had more than a few rips, there was no way they could be salvaged. He pulled the new jeans on and assessed the waist. It was a few inches smaller than he normally would have purchased, but in his starved state it actually fit well enough that he almost didn't need a belt except for the habit. Plus, it was where he carried his weapon of choice: the screw driver.

Next, he pulled off his sweatshirt and the t-shirt beneath. Like the jeans, the t-shirt had seen much better days as evident by the brown-ish stains around the once-white armpit areas of the shirt. The sweatshirt, on the other hand, was a newer item, needed only in the prior few weeks as the temperatures dropped so he decided to keep it. Just as he reached out for the new t-shirt, he heard a voice calling out his name.

"Rick? Rick? Are you—oh god! I'm so sorry!"

He turned his head to watch Kate startle as though she'd seen him completely naked instead of just shirtless and without shoes. She covered her eyes and rotated her body away from him until he said, "No, it's fine; I'm almost done." By the time he pulled the t-shirt down over his face she was looking at him again. "Sorry if you thought I was hiding, but Laura gave me these clothes and I was anxious to change; I think I've been wearing those jeans for two months straight."

She offered a small smile. "Well I'm glad Laura could help you out. I actually just came to see if you needed anything else?"

He pulled on the hooded sweatshirt and then bent over at the waist, so he could put his shoes back on. "You have given me more than enough." Food, water, and his daughter? Castle believed he would be forever indebted to Kate for those three things alone.

"Well, Abigail wants to go on one more run before we lose the light. My mother's and I are going and-"

"Oh, I'd be happy to help if you-"

"There's no need for that," she promised. "Just stay here with Alexis. We'll be back soon."

"You're sure?"

She bobbed her head. "Rest up, Rick; we usually don't stay in the same place for very long."

He nodded. As much as he wanted to earn his keep so to speak he did want to spend time with his daughter after being away for so long. "Okay, Kate; I'll see you later."

* * *

"You're being awfully quiet this afternoon," Johanna commented to her daughter as they finished cleaning off a shelf of napkins and other paper goods and packing them into a more easily transportable box.

Kate gave a little shrug. "Just thinkin' about stuff." Well, not so much stuff as one subject in particular; the same subject she'd been thinking about ever since a strange man stumbled upon their group earlier that day.

When Kate and her mother left camp an hour earlier, Abigail drove them to another shopping area not far from where they met Rick. In addition to a hardware store, nail salon, and some sort of electronics store, that shopping area had a grocery store, where Abigail hoped to find a jackpot. Being more of a realist, Kate believed that the store would be well picked over, since it would be an obvious source of food to anyone passing by. After killing several undead presumably drawn in by the unpleasant stench of rotting food, Kate discovered she was mostly correct; the aisle of canned goods was mostly bare, but some usable items remained.

As she and her mother packed up anything they thought might be remotely useful in the future, Kate's thoughts continually circled back to one topic in particular. She went around and around in her mind trying to find a way out, trying to convince herself that another path might be best, but she always ended up in the same spot. In her mind, only one clear answer existed.

"Stuff, huh? What kind of stuff?"

Rounding her shoulders as they moved on to the next aisle, Kate asked her mother, "How much do you trust me?"

"Implicitly. Why?"

Kate poked her head out of the aisle and looked left and right to see that no one was in immediate ear-shot. Then, keeping her voice just above a whisper, she said, "Abigail doesn't want Rick and Alexis to stay with us; she wants us to leave them behind when we move on tomorrow."

Johanna frowned. "Can't say that I'm completely shocked to hear that, given her attitude. And I very much doubt anyone would be able to change her mind, which is a shame. The fact that Rick and Alexis found each other again should be celebrated, not punished, but I suppose there isn't much we can do."

"Actually," Kate continued, her heart beating a little bit faster, "when we talked about it, I implied that you and I would stay behind with them when Abigail moves on."

The elder woman's eyes flared wide. "Wha—Katie!"

Kate cringed and began to pace the area in front of the heavy-duty bathroom cleaners. "I know, I know—but you didn't see him, Mom. He was crying and so distraught—all over a can of green beans! And then, when I went back to tell him we were leaving, I saw him changing his shirt and he just looks…emaciated." She shivered at the recollection of the glimpse she'd caught of his torso. She could see every rib and the grooves around the edges of his collar bone were steep.

"The skin was just hanging off his ribs and on his belly. I…I'm genuinely afraid that leaving him and Alexis alone right now would be a death sentence for both of them," she confessed. With the finds their group had made that day, they had surely picked the immediate area clean of food. Even if she left a small amount behind (against Abigail's wishes, she imagined) they would still need to travel to find more supplies—and how far would they need to go? By the sound of it Rick had been searching for quite some time without much success. The thought of them cold, hungry, and alone made her heart break.

"Besides—how can we leave Alexis behind?"

Johanna gave her head a little shake. "I don't want to leave her either, and of course I wouldn't mind having Rick tag along with us but… Whether or not we agree with Abigail's methods, this group has been good to us. If we were to go back to watching our own backs, sleeping in shifts, and-"

"Rick'll help with that once he's had a week or so to recover," Kate interrupted her mother's list of reasons. She understood them because she had thought of them as well. They'd grown so comfortable with their new lives as part of a larger group she had almost forgotten what it was like when she and her mother were on their own and how much more difficult it was for them to survive. That was back in the early days when food was more prevalent and the weather favorable. Going into the winter with only one more adult and a child to watch over would surely be more challenging than she was able to fathom in that moment, but at the end of the day… "I'm sorry, Mom, but I just don't think I can leave them behind."

Johanna opened her mouth to speak, but before she could Abigail passed by the aisle they stood in and then doubled-back when she spotted them. "Ten minutes and then we're heading out," she told them.

"Okay," Kate and her mother said in unison. Then, once their leader had walked away, Johanna told her daughter quietly, "We'll talk about this later."

Kate nodded in agreement and then returned to the supply-seeking task at hand.

* * *

"Okay, I think it's _somebody's_ bed time."

"Nooo!" Alexis whined to her father. "There are no more bedtimes."

Castle gasped, feigning shock. "No more bedtimes!? That can't possibly be true."

"Uh huh it is."

He dipped his head so that their noses almost touched and he looked her squarely in the eye. "Nice try."

"Aww no—five more minutes."

"No more minutes," Castle said, practically grinning as he flashed back to one of the many bedtime arguments they had back home; back when things were normal. "Go—into the tent."

"Only if you come too!"

He shook his head. "I'm going to sleep out here tonight."

"No, you're not."

Rick startled at the sound of the new voice. Kate and her mother had insisted on giving he and Alexis privacy even though he told her that wasn't necessary. After their evening meal they'd moved to another camp nearby to sit with a woman and her two children while he and Alexis chatted about their time apart. Now they had returned, but he simply could not take advantage of their generosity any more.

"I'm not going to take your tent."

Kate crouched down beside him and nodded. "For tonight you will—you need a good night's sleep."

A mirthless laugh escaped his lips. "You act like those are still possible." Kate gave him a wry smile in response.

"C'mon Dad." Alexis tugged at his arm, clearly anxious to have him protectively at her side once more, but there were things that needed said that she didn't need to hear so he gave her hands a gentle squeeze before peeling them off his forearm.

"In a few minutes, pumpkin; I want to speak with Kate and Jo."

Though she pouted for a moment, Alexis ultimately relented. She said goodnight to the two elder women, took off her sneakers, and then climbed inside the tent. Rick then turned his back so he could attempt to shield his daughter from their conversation. Kate and her mother had taken seats on the far side of the fire they burned for both heat and light. He glanced between them, taking in their similar brows, eyes, and mouths. They were both very attractive women and, for what they'd done for Alexis alone, beautiful on the inside as well.

"I really don't know how to thank you for what you've done."

"There's no need," Johanna assured him.

In his mind, there was a very serious need, but he didn't want to argue. Instead, he pressed his lips together and considered how to word his next question, for even in the face of a near apocalyptic scenario, his writer's curiosity was insuppressible. "Alexis said something happened to the men in this group?"

Kate nodded. "Yes, they were all killed; we were ambushed at dawn by a group of terrible men."

He grunted as he skimmed his fingers over the straggly hairs on his chin. "I'm familiar with that; had my things stolen more times than I can count."

"Your mother told us about what happened when you were separated from them."

Castle's brow rose momentarily as he had not thought about that incident in quite some time. He'd faced so many horrors since then the incident that separated him from his family, while arguably the most horrific of all, had simply been pushed to the back of his mind. Plus, he didn't like to think about how despicable they were as it always made his blood boil.

"Right…them. I had so little time to think after I realized what was happening…I only knew I had to get my mother and Alexis as far away from them as I could. I figured they'd kill me which I was fine with as long as they escaped, but they didn't. They knocked me out and I woke up later, tied to their truck; they'd taken me back to their camp. Don't know why they didn't kill me, but instead they tortured and humiliated me for…days, weeks—who knows. Then, when they were ready to move on, the stripped me of everything I owned and just left me behind. My encounters with others have played out similarly…except no one else ever tried to take my underwear."

He'd do well for a few days, find food and water, then be beat up and have everything stolen and repeat the same pattern a few days later. In thirty-five years of living in New York City he'd never been mugged, but for a period of time on the road it seemed like a weekly occurrence. If he was lucky, he could toss his belongings at the assailants and then sprint away bruise-free, but that did not always happen. Suffice to say: running into Kate was a blessing in many ways.

"So that's how you ended up in this state."

He nodded. "Yeah. I just kept moving figuring at some point I had to stumble upon some food or a usable vehicle or…" He cut off his list with a shrug, for they had been on the road as well, so they knew the struggle.

Brushing his hand over his chin again, Castle gazed wistfully back at the tent that held his sleeping daughter. As the entire day felt like a dream, he still had not yet come to terms with his mother's death. He felt as though she might be in the next tent over, or that maybe after a few more days of walking they'd see her too. He knew he'd process it eventually, but to have Alexis at his side felt the greatest gift he could have ever experienced.

Looking back to Kate he said, "I never thought I'd see them again, you know? I told myself I might just to get through the day, but deep down I know it was impossible—and then I found you." Simply by giving him a belly full of food she may have saved his life, but she had also given him more than he could have ever expected, and for that his gratitude was immeasurable.

With a simple smile on her face, Kate reached around the fire and gave his shoulder a squeeze. Then, she gestured towards the tent and said, "You should sleep, Rick."

He reached out, caught her hand, and grabbed it firmly. "Thank you, thank you both so much." He looked at each woman in turn, dropped Kate's hand, and then moved towards the tent for what he knew would be the most restful night of sleep he'd had in a very long time.

* * *

 **A/N** : thank you all so much for all your reviews! I'm glad you're enjoying the story :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"Sleep well?"

Kate gazed over at her mother a bit bleary-eyed when she poked her head out of the tent. "Well" was not a descriptor she would have used for the four hours of sleep she caught while her body was tucked beside that of a man she'd known for less than a day. Sufficient might have been a more accurate descriptor, but it was what it was. She still didn't regret the decision to bring Rick into their camp; it would just take her a bit more time to get used to sleeping in shifts once again.

"Fine. How was your night? See anything?"

Johanna nodded her head in the direction of the street-side of their camp. "Just Abigail getting up at dawn and moving things towards the road. Looks like they'll be moving out early."

Kate was about to comment on the fact that unlike all previous times when they were moving on, Abigail had skipped their campsite when informing everyone of the following day's departure time, but then she thought better of it. There was no purpose to pointing something out to her mother that would only be upsetting. She felt she'd done enough of that over the prior day, even if Johanna ultimately agreed with her decision.

The prior night after Rick had gone to bed Kate and her mother quietly discussed the dilemma they faced: continue to travel with Abigail's group and the safety and security that came along with it, or stay behind with a girl they'd come to care about and a new stranger for the sake of being good people. Ultimately, Johanna agreed that the guilt of leaving Rick and Alexis behind would taint whatever future they could make with Abigail's group. In addition, given their already existing conflicts, it seemed only a matter of time before they would ultimately separate and being with another pair was certainly better than being alone.

Despite agreeing to stay behind, Kate knew Johanna was not fully convinced their decision was the right one. Hell—neither was she. She didn't feel that either of their choices was "right" for each came with serious drawbacks, however she knew for certain which was the one she could live with, and thus that was the one she had to choose.

After telling her mother she was going to check in with Abigail, Kate clambered from the tent, slipped on her sneakers, and tip-toed her way through the campsites where generally only half the occupants were awake. When she reached the truck at the far end of camp she gave Abigail a nod when their eyes met and Abigail's face contorted into an even deeper frown—if that was even possible. They met in the middle of a clearing with Kate offering a good morning, but Abigail seeming to ignore her.

"We're leaving in a couple hours."

"Okay."

Abigail glanced back towards the truck and then at Kate with a slightly reluctant expression. "You can keep your tent and you can each take your portion of rations from yesterdays' haul; you've earned it."

"Thank you."

"Good luck." She concluded their exchange with sentiments that sounded snide more than anything else. Kate knew Abigail believed she was making a terrible decision and that was fine with her; she didn't need Abigail's permission or approval—not anymore.

Once Abigail walked towards camp, Kate began to survey the supplies they'd collected the day before. As the portion she could take would be more than she could carry in one trip, Kate made her way back to her mother so that they could divide the haul together. They packed both their backpacks to the brim with supplies and even had to carry some extras. Such an amount seemed massive, but with it now needing to sustain four people not two, she also knew it wouldn't last as long as they would like.

After their supplies were back in the area of their tent, Kate and her mother began saying goodbyes to their fellow travelers. Most women seemed shocked to hear they were staying behind, some even expressed disappointment, which Kate appreciated. She genuinely liked nearly all the women they traveled with and would be sad not to contact them again as they had been together for nearly six months.

"You're not second guessing this, are you?" Kate asked softly when she caught Johanna's frown on their way back to their tent area.

She gave a little shrug. "I don't know about second guessing, but saying goodbye to everyone has reminded me that we really are going back to being alone."

"Not totally alone," Kate pointed out, attempting to be positive. When Johanna said nothing, Kate sighed. "You're mad at me, aren't you?"

Johanna stopped walking, faced her daughter, and placed her hands on either side of her face. "No—quite the opposite, in fact. I'm very, very proud of you, Katie. I always have been, but what you're doing now with Rick and Alexis…you're keeping hope alive."

Though Kate appreciated her mother's comments, in her mind, there was no question. "Isn't that what we all should be doing?" Then, she gave her mother's right hand a squeeze and they made their way back towards camp.

* * *

Castle stirred awake not quite sure of where he was or what surrounded him. When that notion fully hit him, he sat upright with a gasp. He looked around frantically until he spotted the drape of red hair on the ground beside his left hand. Alexis— _Alexis!_

The events of the day before flooded back to him and he breathed in a shuddered breath. He'd found his daughter once more and she was not only alive, but thriving. They were going to be together from that point forward and it would be wonderful.

Rolling away gently so he wouldn't wake her, Castle slid towards the tent entrance, which was actually quite difficult to do without taking the whole tent down due to his height. He managed, though, and stepped out onto the soft earth where he found the two women he now considered saints cooking food over their small fire.

"Good morning," Johanna said politely. "We're just about done with breakfast."

Castle gazed down to see a steel pot in which oatmeal boiled and another that contained a dark liquid; he didn't need to be told what this was as his nose that that for him. Feeling an excess of saliva collect in his mouth, he quickly swallowed and tried not to look too much like a man who hadn't eaten three times a day in months.

"We have some dry cereal or protein bars if you'd rather…"

He quickly shot Kate a smile, not wanting her to think he was ungrateful. "No, no it's just the coffee; I can't remember the last time I had coffee."

"Oh, I know," she smiled back at him. "We haven't had it, either. We actually just found this can about a week ago—I already don't know how I'm going to start mornings without it once we run out."

A breathy chuckle escaped his lips when he sat down beside her. "Then I guess we'll be detoxing together."

He watched as she poured the coffee evenly between three mismatched mugs. When it was handed to him, Castle cradled his cup to his chest. The morning chilly, but it wasn't the warmth he was drawn to, but the normalcy of it. Starting the morning with a cup of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal. If he closed his eyes it was almost as though he was back home in his apartment not sitting in a random patch of trees in the middle of southern Virginia.

After savoring for another moment, Castle took his first sip and let it swirl around in his mouth several moments before swallowing. The brew was far from the freshly-ground, high-quality ones he was used to, but it was certainly better than no coffee at all; he had gone far too long without.

Within ten minutes Kate's mother had dished out even proportions of oatmeal in small plastic dishes and Alexis had joined their circle. As he'd been so ravenous over his meal, Castle had been atypically unobservant of his surroundings until he returned his empty bowl to the center of their circle. It was then he noticed that some of the other campsites appeared to be packing up their things, but from his angle he couldn't tell if it was some of the sites or all of them.

Before he could observe any further, Kate leaned over and said quietly in his eat, "Can we take a little walk? We need to talk."

His heart stuttered when he heard her final four words as they did not always have a positive connotation. Trying to suppress all the scenarios flying about his brain, he merely nodded and followed her deeper into the trees where they would be out of earshot of everyone. "Is something wrong?" he asked when he watched her bite down on her bottom lip.

She gave a noncommittal expression as she folded her arms over her chest. "Not exactly. It's just…the group doesn't usually stay in one place too long; they'll be moving out today."

He nodded; her statement had merely confirmed his observation, so he waited for her to continue.

"The thing is...this was Abigail's group before my mother and I joined. That is: she and her husband were the leaders. After we lost all the men she just kind of stayed in charge and…well, she doesn't want you or Alexis coming with us."

"O-oh." He startled slightly at her unexpected words and took a half step back. Seeing as she had held him at gunpoint the day before, he couldn't say he was shocked that Abigail wasn't a fan of his. He imagined were it not for the fact that his daughter was in the group he most certainly would not have been allowed to join them even for a moment. That being said: his daughter _was_ a part of the group and he was a bit shocked to hear that they would be dismissed so quickly without even a chance to prove their worth.

"She said…well it doesn't matter what our reasons are; I don't agree with them. I tried to speak with her on your behalf—I tried to argue that you would be an asset, but… she didn't want to listen."

Castle's gut clenched when he saw the pained expression on the face of the woman before him. As she had been the only member of the quartet of women to step forward and speak to him as a human not a criminal the day before, he had already determined her to be a compassionate person, but her actions every moment since them had solidified that fact in his mind. If she said she argued for him to stay, he fully believed her, and of course did not blame her in any way for her lack of success. Clearly, the situation was out of her hands. She had already given him far more than he deserved and now it seemed time for them to part ways. Considering how much of that he'd done over the prior few months, he wasn't even surprised by it.

"Kate, please don't feel like you owe me anything. It's quite the opposite in fact; I'm deeply indebted to you for all that you've done, so if you want us to go, just say the word and we're gone. in fact, you know what? Don't say anything. We'll just go-I only ask for a bottle of water for Alexis and then-"

"Rick, no—no. That's not what I want." She paused to rake her fingers back through her hair. She then planted her hands at her hips and gazed up at him, determined. "We don't know each other very well, so I'm going to preemptively apologize for what I'm going to say. It's probably too blunt, but the thing is, Rick: you look awful. You're gaunt, clearly starved, and exhausted. I don't think you and Alexis are going to make it on your own out there."

Though his knee-jerk reaction was to be offended by the fact that she implied he couldn't take care of his child, he tried to fight it. He knew Kate was not purposely trying to insult him, but merely repeat things she'd observed. Though he hadn't seen himself in a mirror in weeks, he knew how crazed he must have looked with his straggly beard and unkempt hair. Simply from the way his pants fit he knew he must have lost well over fifty pounds since the onset of the apocalypse; most of it in the prior two months when he'd really been struggling. A week—hell, even twenty-four hours—earlier he probably would have agreed with her sentiments, but not then. He had Alexis back and he would fight for their survival for her—for them. Setting his jaw, he promised, "We'll be fine."

She clicked her tongue, clearly annoyed. "This isn't the time to be a stubborn. You need help, which is why my mother and I will be staying here with you an extra day so we can rest up before we move on."

Completely shocked by her statement, Castle immediately protested. "You can't…You've found a safe haven with this group; you have to leave here with them."

"This group has been a safe haven for us but…" Kate glanced back towards camp momentarily, but then turned to him, steadfast. "But to be entirely honest with you: I think this has been a long time coming. I just can't live the way Abigail wants us to. 'Shoot all men on sight,'" she said with the bitter shake of her head. "It's too cruel. I understand that after what happened to her husband she would want to be overly cautious, but we should be building communities as best we can, not killing off what few humans there are left."

Castle's jaw hung loose as he stared at her a bit in awe. To look as healthy and fit as she did so long after things fell apart, it was clear to him that Kate was a strong, intelligent woman. He'd also seen her kindness the day before, and knew that moment was not just a one-off if his daughter had taken a shine to her the way she had, but this? Hearing such words from her filled his heart with a true sense of hope for the first time in a long time. Compassionate, kind, incredible people still existed in this world and he was lucky enough to find one of them.

As he continued to process her statement, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle when one statement reverberated in his mind. _Shoot all men on sight_. In the chaos of their first meeting the day before, Castle was certain he hadn't fully processed everything that happened. He'd been half-crazed from starvation and further terrorized by the sight of a weapon. He'd been trying to follow their conversation, but without some context it hadn't all registered. Now, he horrifyingly understood what came very close to transpiring.

Swallowing hard, he said in just above a whisper, "She really was going to kill me?"

Kate dipped her chin. "I believe she would have, yes."

Once again, he was practically unable to form words. She truly had saved his life—in more ways than one. Given that, she owed him nothing whereas he owed her everything. By choosing to stay with him over the group she'd come to know she would be abandoning much-coveted security in their new, uncertain world—and leaving him further in her debt. Tentatively, he pointed out, "You don't have to do this, you know."

"Yeah," she promised him, "I do."

* * *

Upon returning to their camp site, Kate made sure that her mother had both their breakfast pots rinsed out before she began collecting their trash and depositing it into the bag they were using at the moment. Though there was no trash collection or official place to deposit anything they no longer wanted, Kate didn't believe that was an excuse to throw one's things about carelessly. They still had to live in the world and she didn't want that world to be a giant trashcan. They took trash bags from stores when they found them and used them while they camped. They always left the bag behind, but their group did try to keep the trash in one place, which was the best they could do.

"How come we're not packing, too?" Alexis asked once the three adults were seated around the small fire once more.

"We're not going with them, Alexis," Johanna told her simply, though of course no one expected that the curious red-head would be satisfied with that answer.

"Are they coming back?"

"No."

"Actually," Rick chimed in as he leaned towards her with an enticing grin, "we're going to have our own adventure: you, me, Kate and Jo. Sounds fun, right?"

Alexis's expression displayed anything but anticipating fun. She glanced at each of the adults before asking, "But why wouldn't we stay with them? The group is safe—that's what you always said."

Kate nodded when Alexis addressed her directly. The girl's statement was true; she had said that on many occasions, but that didn't mean they needed to be together forever. Yes, safety was a very important point that needed to be considered, but it was far from the only point. "It's just time for us to go our separate ways, Alexis."

"But where will we go?"

On that point, Kate did not have an answer. Truthfully: she hadn't considered it too much. She knew in general that they needed to travel south in order to seek out a warmer climate for winter. They didn't have the time or resources to get lost or wander around too much which meant to her that they needed to then stick to traveling along major roadways. With Abigail's group moving out, they probably needed to discuss a strategy.

"We can't follow them—there will be no supplies in their wake," Johanna pointed out wisely, just as Kate thought along the same lines.

"We could move further out towards the coast," Kate offered. To that point they had been trying to follow Interstate 95 knowing it was the most easily identifiable north-south route, but it was far from the only road available to them.

"If I may," Rick chimed in; both women looked in his direction. "I was traveling along the coastal side for most of my trip through Virginia and that's where I had so much trouble; it's very populated. That's why I came further inland."

Kate shook her head, rejecting his implied plan of moving further west. "If we go further inland we could hit the mountains—it'll be far less populated. At least on the coast we might have better access to fresh water—maybe even fish. Besides, we've got to be very close to North Carolina; we'll probably want to stay away from Raleigh if DC was any indication."

"You guys had trouble there too?"

Kate almost laughed for the word "trouble" did not seem nearly accurate enough. Of course, getting out of New York and the heavily-populated areas of New Jersey was terrible, particularly since they were so new to the ways of traveling in the apocalypse, but as they crossed through Pennsylvania and down into Maryland, things became easier. Then, Washington D.C. happened. "It was absolutely terrible. We ran into group after group of people, but you never knew who you could trust. We never slept; we were too afraid to."

After Kate glanced over at her mother, Johanna added, "And there were just so many of those…things."

Rick rubbed his fingers over his chin for a moment before saying, "We should try and find a car; we'll have more options if we can drive."

Kate nodded as this seemed as reasonable a plan as any. "As soon as they leave, we'll go out."

"I should-"

"You need to rest," she told him with a pleasant, but serious expression. "If we can't find a working car, we're going to have to walk, so you should conserve your energy."

"I'm not ill," he insisted with a tone of slight annoyance.

Kate merely smiled. "I know, but we're going to make you carry the tent."

He cracked a small smile. "Oh, but, you know, if we don't find a car, we'll at least need a wagon. No way we can carry all that stuff." He pointed towards their boxes of supplies.

Though she hadn't quite thought about that either, Kate knew he was indeed correct. "Okay—a car or a wagon—we'll take care of it."

* * *

"Do you want to play again, sweetie?" Castle asked of his daughter as he collected the deck of cards spread across the ground before them into a neater pile. The two of them had been alone for the prior half hour after Kate and her mother went in search of a wheeled mode of transportation. The large group had been gone for over an hour, so the forest was mostly quiet, though Castle did continually look up from their game to make sure no undead were staggering about.

When he looked up at his daughter, he saw she was much more focus on the now-vacant area of their campsite than on him. He asked her what was wrong and she said, "I still don't understand why we didn't go with them. I know Kate told you the real reason why."

Castle placed the now-organized deck down on the ground and huffed out a breath. Though Alexis was mature for her age and always had been, as her father he did still like to protect her from the darker, more unsavory parts of life if he could. At the same time, she deserved to know the real reason; she wasn't a little girl anymore. "Apparently, Abigail refused to take us along and Kate and her mother have generously agreed to stay behind so we're not alone."

Her brow creased deeply. "But why? We're nice people."

"I know we are sweetheart; Kate and her mother know that too. Sometimes…" He let his voice drift off as he collected his thoughts. As a writer, he considered analyzing people to be one of his main traits. He couldn't write about the world around him if he didn't understand it, so he observed and tried to put himself in the position of others to understand how they reacted in a given situation. As he, and from the sound of it Kate as well, believed kindness towards others was one of the most important things, it was difficult for him to wrap his mind around Abigail's decision, though he tried.

"You know, events like this can do different things to different people. If I was writing the story, I'd say that maybe losing her husband made Abigail lose part of herself and she just hasn't found a reason to get it back yet."

Alexis lowered her gaze towards the ground. "But, we'll be all alone."

"Hey, no—you don't have to worry about that." Castle leaned over and placed a hand on each of his daughter's shoulders. When she looked up at him, he smiled. "Remember when we were just leaving New York and it was the three of us—we did okay, right? And look at me—I've been by myself for months and I'm still here. Kate and her mother are smart women-"

"They're lawyers."

"Are they really?" he asked, equally surprised and impressed.

"Yes."

"Well see, there you go—they're very smart then. We're going to be okay, Alexis," he promised her. "You don't have to worry—not one bit."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

"I cannot believe you know how to hot-wire a car." Kate clicked her tongue with disbelief as she gazed down at the man who was awkwardly seated on the ground with is torso twisted in to the floor space of the driver's side of an older sedan.

He unfurled himself from the strange position only long enough to wink at her and then go back to his dutiful work beneath the car's dashboard. "Does that bother the lawyer in you?"

She pressed her lips together and considered, for she had not been thinking in that exact sense. Had they been back in Manhattan on a regular day and her companion had wanted to hot-wire a car, she probably would have been upset and certainly would have discouraged the action. In the environment in which they now lived, however, the lines of legality were more blurred than ever, so she was not bothered in that sense. "Not really. I guess I'm just shocked—who actually hot wires a car outside of TV and movies?"

With the slight huff of his breath, Rick slithered out from his position and pushed himself upright once more. "This one's dead; lets try the next one." They walked together over to the next car and repeated the routine of checking the car's doors, discovering they were locked, and then smashing the window to get in.

"I see your point—hotwiring isn't exactly a common skill, especially since it is incredibly hard to do on newer vehicles; however, since I've written about it in two—no, three; I think three—of my novels I needed to know how to do it myself; that's the only way to write it accurately."

She gazed at him with a mixture of confusion and amazement. "You're certainly an interesting person, Rick."

He shrugged one shoulder before lowering himself to the ground. "Don't sell yourself short, Kate; you're plenty interesting, too."

As she disagreed with his comment, Kate said nothing. Instead, she merely tucked her hands into pouch of her sweatshirt and did a three-hundred-sixty degree turn in a continued effort to survey the area. They hadn't seen or heard any of the monsters yet that morning, but that didn't mean they weren't around; one could pop up at any given time, which was why she'd designated herself as the lookout.

Two days earlier, despite a thorough search of the area, Kate and her mother were unable to locate a functioning vehicle or a wagon to transport their supplies. The best they could do was return to the grocery store at which they'd found their last batch of good and take a shopping cart. Of course, the car's wheels were not designed to roll long distance and certainly not over grass or dirt, but it was better than nothing. The following morning they'd packed up their tent, loaded the shopping car with all their food and other supplies, and set off once again.

That area of southern Virginia seemed to largely be made up of farmland, which might have proved lucrative it they weren't already so close to winter. Instead, the fields were barren or filled with weeds that were of no use to anyone. Because of the farms and thus sparse population, they did not run into too many undead wanderers and saw no live travelers, which was good, but also made it harder for them to follow major roads. Fortunately, Kate had picked up a map of Virginia out of one of the cars they searched, so they knew they were at least traveling in the correct direction instead of in circles.

After walking for four hours straight, the group took a mid-day rest under a nice patch of shade thanks to some large oak trees. They each ate a protein bar and shared the one can of soda they'd found before continuing on their way. Unfortunately, their lack of luck continued insofar as the discovery of any food, usable goods, or a vehicle, but as the sun began to drop lower in the sky and Alexis complained of weariness, their luck turned, and they stumbled upon a small shopping plaza containing a restaurant, gas station, and farm supply store, none of which seemed to have been ransacked. From the restaurant they procured a bag of rice and they took some tools from the supply store. They set up camp in a patch of trees not too far away knowing that the next morning would bring the next stage of their plan: testing to see if any of the ten cars remaining in the area would provide them a means of transport.

"Well, I can't get that one started either," Rick grunted after he climbed out from beneath the third and final car in the farm supply store's parking lot.

As she followed him on the way to the Exxon station, Kate asked, "You're sure you remember how to do this, right?"

He glanced over his shoulder and shot her a look. "Yes. All these cars just have dead batteries. No wonder—they've been sitting here unused for six months—maybe even longer!"

"Right…"

"I have a feeling one of these'll work, though," he said as he thumbed in the direction of the cars parked around the gas station. "We'll just-"

"Wait, stop!" Kate reached out and snagged the edge of his sweatshirt to halt his progress. "There are two of them on the other side of those gas pumps." She suppressed a shiver at the sight of the shuffling, groaning duo, one of which appeared to be missing nearly all the skin below its nose, fully exposing its teeth and jaw.

"Okay—I got them. Gimmie the thing—the axe." He reached his hand back and wiggled his fingers for the object Kate carried for use as both a weapon against monsters and a car window smashing tool. She passed it over silently and hung back as he approached the gas station. He tapped the metal head of the axe against one of the concrete barriers that stopped cars from bumping into the pump to draw the creatures over one at a time. He flattened the first one swiftly with just one blow, but when he went for the second the axe glanced off its head and it growled as it reached out for him. Kate gasped, but a moment later Rick had put it down as well.

"I don't see anymore," Rick said when she stepped up beside him and took back the axe, which was now covered in a murky brown substance.

"Thanks for that. I…I'm actually impressed by how quickly you took them down," she told him. As she and her mother had been on the road a long time, they had certainly taken out their fair share of creatures. They did what they could to avoid them, but sometimes that was impossible. When they had no choice, Kate and her mother usually worked together. She had taken a few of them out on her own, but she didn't like to; it was terrifying.

His brow rose slightly. "Oh. Well, the axe makes it easy. When I was by myself I had to take out a lot of them—usually with only a screw driver or a small knife."

Kate felt her stomach lurch at the mental image of having to get close enough to one of those snarling beasts to take it out with something described as a small knife. As they made their way to the first vehicle in the Exxon station's parking lot, she said, "I can't imagine how you did it—being by yourself for as long as you were. My mother and I have always been together." She knew how hard it was with just the two of them, but being alone? How did he sleep with no one to watch out for monsters or unsavory humans? How did he relax for even one moment? Just thinking about it made her feel as though she would have been on the brink of sanity.

"It wasn't easy, that's for sure. I…I guess I don't know how I did it. I did it because I had to, I suppose, but it's been…" His voice drifted off and he shook his head. "The hardest thing I've ever done—no question about it. Searching for food, shelter. Fighting those…things." A mirthless laugh escaped his lips. "Before this whole thing started, the closest I ever came to killing something was in my writing."

For a moment, Kate's brain didn't process his statement, but then she remembered: the man before her was actually Richard Castle, well-known mystery writer. As most of his books featured macabre tales, he had of course committed man murders on the page—in gory detail, if she recalled correctly. But she also imagined that committing the act in person and—literally—getting the blood on your hands was very, very different, even if one could argue that eliminating one of those creatures wasn't much different than smashing the poisonous spider about to bite you.

"Oh. Yeah…I guess I wouldn't have thought of it that way."

"It's much easier to do on a page—actually, a lot of things are." He gave a little shrug and then walked up to the first car, tried the handle, and then turned around to gaze at her. "Axe please."

* * *

Castle remembered how to hotwire a car—he _swore_ he remembered. True, he hadn't successfully done it for six or seven years—or whenever he was first taught—but he had always remembered the instructions, because he found such a skill amusing despite it being almost entirely obsolete. But he definitely remembered how! Though, when he failed again, he began to wonder if perhaps it wasn't the car's dead batteries, but his lack of skill. At best, it was probably both.

Huffing out a breath mostly out of disappointment in himself, Castle clambered out of the final car in the Exxon parking lot and simply stood beside it, staring blankly towards the gas station itself as he ran his fingers through his now much-shorter hair (thanks to Johanna he'd had a trim before they left their camp). Right beside the small convenience store portion, in which the only remaining supplies were some cigarettes, which did no one any good, there was a single-bay garage presumably for small repairs and oil changes. They hadn't bothered to look inside it when scavenging for food, but the more he thought about it, he figured they should.

"Where are you going?" he heard Kate asked when he began walking across the parking lot without explaining what was going on inside his mind.

"That shop—I'm wondering if they have any keys for these cars; then we wouldn't need to hotwire them.

"Maybe…but didn't you already mess them up by trying to hotwire them?"

He stopped dead in his tracks, realizing her point certainly seemed like a valid one. Turning to face her he said, "I'm not sure, but let's see if there are keys just in case."

After using the axe to break through the back door of the garage, they split up and began searching for keys. The shop was a disorganized mess, but also not that large so it didn't take long for them to discover they would not be finding a mode of transportation there, which left them only with the restaurant.

"You know, I, um, never said but: I really liked _Flowers for Your Grave_."

Castle stopped walking and gazed back over his shoulder a little shocked. In the strange state of the world, for the most part people didn't even care enough to learn his name let alone his former profession. He doubted he'd actually spoken to someone about one of his works since it all fell apart, so Kate's sudden mention of one of his first novels caught him a little off guard. As he continued to gaze at her while his brain formulated a response, he took note of the fact that her cheeks appeared a little rosy and realized his staring was probably embarrassing her, but that was okay; she looked cute when she was embarrassed.

"Thank you—that's, ah, kind of you to say."

"It was the first one of yours I read."

He hummed and continued walking. "I'm sorry—I didn't mean to stare at you I was just surprised. I haven't talked about writing in so long it almost feels as though it was a whole other lifetime ago."

"Wasn't it?" she responded with surprising sincerity.

He nodded. "Yeah, I guess it was. It's so strange how much of our lives were previously dedicated towards working, earning a living, or perusing a hobby and now we're just trying to survive."

She nodded. "I think about that, too. How, um, how'd you get started? Writing books, I mean."

"Oh, well…Well, I guess I've always been a storyteller—ever since I was about nine or ten. I would write all the time trying to improve. Plus, it's always been a coping mechanism for me; a way to process what was happening whether it was my mother's divorces...or eventually my own."

He saw her brow rise sharply. "Oh. I…I guess I had assumed Alexis's mother died; I'm sorry."

He shook off her apology. "It's fine. Alexis's mother, Meredith, left us when she was five. She moved to California with her new boyfriend and…we don't hear from her all that often. Difficult as it was at first, it was for the best. Meredith was never the most dedicated mother and as a father it's hard to watch your young daughter's heart break over and over again."

"I can't imagine."

He shook his head, trying to shake off the dredged-up memories of betrayal, hurt, and anger. For so many years he felt it was his duty to protect his daughter from her mother's carelessness and self-centered attitude. Some days it felt like throwing his body down on a grenade again and again. It had consumed so much of him, which in that moment felt ironic, because it seemed very likely the issue might never come up again. "Sad truth of it is…we'll probably never see her again, assuming she's still alive."

"I think that might be the case with many of our loved ones."

"Your father?" he guessed as he had yet to hear the man's name mentioned, which seemed odd even if only a few days had passed since they met.

Kate quickly shook her head. "No, no he died years ago; he was killed in a traffic accident when I was nineteen."

"I'm sorry to hear that." He slowed his walk down as they reached the first car in the restaurant's parking lot. He leaned his back against hit and gazed over at her, deciding to offer up a sad part of his own story. "My fiancée died from the virus."

Kate gasped audibly. "Oh god; I'm so sorry."

He skimmed his fingers over his beard and thought back to the moment he discovered Gina collapsed in the bathroom of his apartment, her skin ghost-pale yet burning to the touch because of her high fever. He'd called 911, and authorities had come and quarantined his loft, though no one else in his household ever had even a slight temperature (thank god). There had been so much chaos and uncertainty back then, he wasn't even sure whether or not he'd fully come to grips with the moment he received notice of her death from the hospital, even if nearly eight months had passed since then.

"Everything was happening so fast, you know? It all seemed like some horrible nightmare. Sometimes it still does," he added with a bitter huff of breath.

Kate stepped up in front of him with an expression of sorrow. In a tender voice she said, "I'm so sorry, Rick; it must have been so hard to leave the city without her."

"Actually I…I never really thought about that. That is: I was so focused on trying to keep my mother and daughter safe, that as soon as I thought things were about to fall apart, we left without really looking back." Though he had never specifically thought about it, he realized he probably should have felt a little guilty or at least sad over not thinking about Gina, but truly the only thoughts in his head were keeping Alexis safe, making sure she didn't get the virus, or get attacked by those suffering its aftermath.

Shaking his head to get rid of such thoughts that would do no one any good, he decided to change the subject. "Did you leave someone behind? Your husband, perhaps?"

Kate laughed so loud he startled and she quickly apologized, explaining, "Sorry, no. I've never even come close to being engaged; I was one of those married to my job types."

"No—really?"

She gave a guilty shrug. "Yeah."

His lips quirked into a smile as he found the concept very amusing. While it didn't shock him that she was dedicated to her job, from what he'd learned about her so far he knew that Kate was kind-hearted, intelligent, and beautiful; he couldn't imagine men not tripping over themselves to be with her, but then he supposed maybe she was just dedicated enough to her profession that any such groveling male didn't faze her. "What kind of law did you practice?"

"Well I haven't had my degree very long, so I was still cutting my teeth a large firm, but I intended to work with my mother at her legal aid practice."

He smiled a bit larger as the puzzle pieces of her story began to fall into place. "Ah, so that's where your kindness towards strangers comes from."

"Something like that."

"You've had your degree what? About a year?"

She bobbed her head. "Would have been two this past summer. I turned twenty-eight last week if that's what you're trying to figure out."

He had been trying to determine her age, so he was glad for her to confirm it, but the way in which she did totally stunned him. "Last week! Did you celebrate?"

She looked at him as though he'd suggested trying to find a 747 to hotwire instead of a Toyota. "What's there to celebrate?"

"Surviving, for starters," he said. When her expression showed nothing but indifference, he gave a rather determined nod. "Okay, Kate. Let's see if any of these cars start and then we'll go back to camp so I can make you a bowl of belated birthday rice."

Kate laughed at the suggestion that even he knew to be ridiculous. "Okay—whatever you say, Rick."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

 **December**

Normally, awakening to the sound of rain gently tapping against windows would not have made Kate groan unpleasantly. If she was back in New York and could have spent the entire day inside reading and having comfort food delivered to her apartment, she would have been quite pleased to hear the rain. As that day was day number three of a seemingly endless storm, she was not even remotely happy.

Huffing out a disgruntled breath, she rolled carefully out of the bed she shared with her mother, pulled a sweatshirt over her head, and began quietly making her way through the narrow hall. She paused briefly to peek into the bunk beds to see that Rick and Alexis remained sleeping, and then she made her way towards the front of the vehicle. It was so gloomy outside that barely any light filtered in except through the windshield, so she sat in the driver's seat, tucked her legs beneath her, and rested her arms loosely on the steering wheel as she gazed out through the deluge pouring down the front of the RV.

A little over a month had passed since the fateful day she ran into Rick and things had been…well, difficult. After several days of walking they finally found a vehicle, though it only had a quarter tank of gas. They were able to drive two hours until their path became blocked by disabled vehicles and downed trees that they were unable to move beyond, so they once again traveled on foot.

With their water supply running low, they knew finding supplies needed to be their number one priority. They took a few days to search through houses in densely populated neighborhoods as well as grocery stores, convenience stores, and any other places they thought might have supplies. Though they found a few worthwhile things, it wasn't enough to sustain them long term.

The further south they moved they encountered similar situations: travel snafus and limited supplies. For the next week Kate remained in a permanently frustrated state until her mother reminded her that they were simply at a disadvantage. Presumably many people were traveling south seeking warmer weather in the winter months, but coming from so far north they were traveling later than most. Most likely, the earlier groups had picked through all the good supplies. This made sense to her, but it didn't make her feel any happier.

Finally, they had a few-day streak of good luck. They found a case of water and a box of canned fruits tucked away in an otherwise abandoned home and Rick had found the RV with keys inside, which meant it didn't even need hotwired. The women had laughed when he announced that the RV was the solution to all their problems, but in the end he'd been right as it was not only a form of transportation, but shelter as well. As it was quite the gas-guzzler, it was far from a perfect mode of transportation, but since it was the first functional vehicle they'd come across in days they didn't hesitate to pile inside.

For a week Kate had thought things were turning around from them. Yes, they'd added the problem of finding fuel on top of food and water, but they had the advantage of not needing to pitch a tent and build a fire every night (or, as the nights grew colder, finding a suitable structure in which to bunker down). For the first time they weren't all sharing the same tight space to sleep and had actual mattresses to sleep on. On top of all that, everyone just seemed more relaxed in the RV, but then, just as quickly as her relief had formed, it vanished.

With the RV practically running on fumes their search for fuel to syphon grew desperate and they struggled to find more than a gallon or so here and there. Just as they were discussing at what point they would need to abandon their mode of transportation for the sake of making more progress, Rick became ill. Though no one understood why as they had all eaten the same foods, his gastrointestinal system began to rebel violently. As he was barely able to take a few sips of water without vomiting, their progress had been halted for three days.

As Rick's illness had coincided with the rain storm, Kate and her mother had been limited with the supplies they were able to procure. The deluge was both inconvenient and disorienting, so they didn't feel comfortable traveling too far from the RV. Luckily, they'd come to stop near a cluster of homes, but all were pretty picked through. They were able to syphon enough gas out of two lawn mowers that would get them moving a little bit more and they picked up a bottle of Pepto-Bismol for Rick, but found nothing edible for themselves.

Upon Johanna's suggestion, they raided the homes of every bowl, pot, and Tupperware container they could find in order to collect rainwater to drink. Given the amount of containers they had spread around the RV, Kate thought they'd get enough water for weeks, but that was not the case; despite steady rain each vessel had shockingly little contents, but since they had so many it at least equated to enough for the four of them to drink for several days.

Sitting there watching the rain Kate began to wonder for the first time in a while if perhaps they weren't going to make it. Surely Rick's illness and thus dehydration had weakened him. If they couldn't find more gas for the RV (which at that point seemed highly probable), they would need to walk, but how much progress could Rick make? Even if he did rally and was able to keep up with their eighteen mile a day average, finding supplies was only becoming progressively more difficult the further south they went. Worse yet—they were quickly approaching winter. She had hoped they would have a cache of supplies by then that would get them through cold, gloomy days, but they didn't; they barely had enough to keep pushing through.

Kate had been so entranced by watching the rain and thinking about their predicament that the sound of movement behind her made her jump. She whipped around with a small gasp, not sure of what was going on, when she was surprised to see the shadow of a large frame approaching her. "Oh, hey," she sighed out softly, pleased to see him up and about on his own accord. "Feeling better today?"

Rick grunted as he clambered into the passenger seat of the RV. He wore a blanket around his shoulders like a cape and his eyes and cheeks still appeared sunken, but his skin looked far less pallid. "I think so. Hopefully I'm through the worst of it now." They sat in silence for a moment before he added, "Still raining pretty hard out there, huh?"

"Yeah. I never thought I'd say this, but I kind of miss being able to turn on the news and listen to the weather report."

He cracked a small smile. "Yeah, it would be nice to know when this'll end, but at least it's giving us drinkable water."

"It is, but not as much as I would have hoped."

For the next few moments they sat in silence simply watching the rain. Kate's peaceful observance was interrupted by a sharp pinch in her gut and she quickly moved her hand to cover the spot, as though the action might silence any impending growls. With their reduced supplies came a reduction in the frequency with which they ate. As they still wanted Alexis to have as much as they could offer her given their circumstances, the adults were down to just two meager meals a day. Though she was certainly used to working through lunches at her job, Kate was finding it more and more difficult to go without proper servings of food; they all were.

Almost as though he'd been reading her thoughts, Kate heard Rick say softly, "I'm sorry, Kate."

She turned her head to gaze at him curiously. "For what?"

"We're in this predicament because of me – because you chose to stay behind with Alexis and I instead-"

"Hey, no." She rotated her body in the seat so that she faced him. She reached across the space in their seats and placed her hand gently on his forearm, giving it a squeeze. "Don't you dare think like that. We don't know staying with Abigail's group would have guaranteed our safety. We don't know that they're finding enough food. Maybe they ran into a group of those things. Maybe they ran into people. Maybe they….well, whatever the case: I don't regret my decision—I never will."

Yes, they had a rough month, but in that new reality, she very much doubted anyone was having an easy one. Or, if such a person did exist, they were certainly one of only a handful. Even with Abigail's group there were times they struggled to find enough food to keep everyone's belly's full. What was most important then was that no one got left behind; that no one was alone. Traveling with Rick and Alexis had yielded equally as many laughs as it had frowns. Most importantly: she didn't wake up each morning wondering if they were safe, if they had made it, because they were together.

A guilty expression crossed his face. "But we're low on food and water. We have basically no gas."

She leaned back in her seat and gaze out towards the puddles forming on the road once more. "I know."

Rick huffed out a breath and leaned forward with his elbows resting on his thighs. "I used to be this optimistic guy—like, really optimistic. I annoyed my mother, my ex-wife, my fiancée—basically everyone. Because of that, I want to be the person saying that we'll figure it out, we'll find food, but I just…"

Kate felt her chest constrict at his anguished tone. "Don't take this the wrong way but: maybe it's the dehydration talking."

He cracked a small smile. "Maybe."

Feeling a wave of optimism wash over her in the wake of his depressive comments, she said, "Look I get it—you've had a rough few days; feeling a bit down is only natural, but we'll figure out a way through this."

"Maybe—if it ever stops raining."

Kate turned her head to see her mother approaching from the back of the RV. She sat down on the small seat behind the driver's and turned to face their male companion. "Feeling better, Rick?"

"Well, I haven't felt the urge to vomit since last night so…here's hoping," he said while holding up his index and middle fingers crossed.

Johanna hummed. "I wish we had some crackers or plain toast to give you."

"So do I."

"I was thinking maybe I'd go out today—despite the rain. We've only ever walked about twenty minutes out in every direction. If we increase that to forty minutes or an hour-"

"You can't walk an hour each way in this," Rick told Johanna.

She shrugged. "I know it's not ideal, but we're running low on choices since-"

"If we stay here, we'll die."

Kate watched her mother stiffen at Rick's dire, though unfortunately not completely false conclusion. "Well I wasn't going to say anything that dramatic but yes, we need supplies; we need to keep moving. We're…halfway through North Carolina?"

"About," Kate agreed.

"How far do you think we should go?" Johanna asked the group.

"Georgia, at least," Rick said. "We shouldn't get snow there—at least, not much of it."

Kate nodded when her mother met her gaze, clearly searching for an opinion. "Yeah, Georgia."

"Okay," she said with a nod. "It'll still take us…well, a while to get there, so I suppose I should get ready to-"

"Hang on," Rick interrupted, turning his gaze towards Kate. "How much fuel do you think we have? How far can we get?"

"Oh, I don't know…" she paused and did a quick mental calculation based on the RV's fuel usage they'd seen so far. "Ten, maybe fifteen, miles."

"Then let's just drive. There's no sense in anyone getting completely soaked when we don't know what's out there. Maybe six or seven miles down this road we'll find something—and we'll be no worse off, really."

Kate shrugged as this logic seemed sound. "Fine with me."

Johanna nodded in agreement. "Yeah, okay—just keep a close eye on the odometer; we don't want to go too far without looking for more gas."

As the women began to organize for their departure, Rick concluded, "You know—we should probably start looking for a car. Nice as this has been we've got to go further, faster."

"Makes sense," Kate agreed. Though with a car they would still need to find a place to hunker down overnight, that annoyance would be far outweighed by the fuel they'd save in a smaller vehicle. Plus, it wasn't as though they were toting too much stuff to store in the trunk of a car; the RV had simply become too impractical.

"What's going on?" Alexis asked as she emerged from the sleeping area rubbing her left eye with her knuckles.

"We're gonna drive for a little while, pumpkin and hopefully we'll find some more gas for the RV," her father explained.

Alexis yawned and nodded. "Okay. Can I have something to eat?"

"Sure honey; I'll get it for you," Johanna said before guiding Alexis to the kitchenette area of the RV. Kate waited until they were seated again before turning on the RV and slowly pulling out onto the road, silently hoping that both the odometer and gas gauge were reading accurately.

* * *

"Oh! Oh—shit!" Castle cursed when he felt his feet sliding out from underneath his body. Since he was unable to right himself in time, he ended up collapsing on the ground with loud exhale of, "Oof!" Thankfully the fall hadn't been that bad. He'd merely been trying to go down a rather steep embankment to quickly on slippery wet grass, so his fall became more of a hard sit. Still, it rattled the bones in his spine enough to momentarily stun him.

"Oh god—are you okay?"

He looked up to see Kate jogging back to where she was a few hundred feet in front of him. They'd spotted a neighborhood from the highway they were driving on and rather than trying to find an exit and double back to find the correct road leading to the houses, all of which could have wasted gas, they decided to simply pull over and hoof it. Castle didn't mind as the houses didn't seem that far away. Apparently, he was just a bit clumsy.

"I'm fine—ah." He grunted whine he tried to stand up and his feet began to slide once again. "Grass is slippery—that's all."

By that time, Kate was just a few feet in front of him, so she walked up the embankment with her hand outstretched. "Here; let me help you."

Castle find himself struggling with the motivation to lift his hand and grasp onto Kate's. Ultimately, the moisture seeping into the backside of his pants was enough of a motivator for him to get off the ground, which remained heavily saturated just an hour after the rains had stopped. Kate helped hoist him up and he managed to find his footing, but he felt more out of breath than if he'd been the one sprinting across the open field of grass.

Gazing out ahead he saw his daughter standing beside Johanna as they waited patiently for the others to catch up. He told himself that he wanted to keep walking, to be useful and find more supplies, but the trembling in his legs made him want to collapse back on the ground, curl up, and take a nap—even despite the wetness.

Turning back to Kate he said softly, "I know I have to keep going for Alexis, for all of us, but right now…"

"Rick," she began gently, closing her right hand around his left elbow. "You've been sick and barely eaten for three days. Just go back and lay down; let us handle this."

Feeling a wave of stubbornness kick in, he shook his head and made his way down the hill, albeit more gingerly. "No, no," he told her. "I want to help."

"But you don't want to get sick again," she pointed out.

"Then…then I'll just be the lookout," he suggested. "I'll sit outside the house you guys are searching and make sure nothing is lurking around."

She gazed at him carefully for thirty seconds but then ultimately bobbed her head in agreement to this plan. "Okay."

Though it only took about seven minutes, Castle's legs felt shaky by the time they reached the front yard of the closest house to the highway. He hovered in the front doorway with Alexis while Kate and her mother made sure the house was vacant. When they confirmed, Alexis went inside and he took a seat on the decorative bench on the covered front porch.

Thanks to the rain, the temperature was actually decently warm, so he didn't feel chilled sitting outside in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. Actually, the day was quite pretty now that the storm clouds had moved on. The sky was a lovely blue color and it had just the right amount of fluffy white clouds to appear quite picturesque. For a moment, Castle leaned his head back against the house and shut his eyes, trying to forget that they weren't in a rather dire situation.

A moment later, a loud thump jolted him from relaxation. He jumped to his feet and gazed around trying to find the source of the noise only to realize it had probably come from inside the house. Just to be sure he decided to walk around to the far side of the house to make sure nothing was lurking. As he walked past the garage doors, he could see through the windows that a vehicle remained inside and he got an idea.

Dashing back towards the home's front porch, he slipped inside and closed the front door so nothing could wander in without their knowledge. He then made his way through the unfamiliar home until he found the door leading from the kitchen to the garage. "Bingo!" he proclaimed when he saw that car keys hung off one of the hooks.

After grabbing the keys he stepped into the garage to find the car was actually a dark blue Ford Focus, which certainly would have better gas mileage than the RV. "Please turn on, please turn on," he said to himself as he opened up the driver's side door and slipped inside. He held his breath, put the key in the ignition, and twisted it; thankfully, the car's engine roared to life.

"Yes!" Rick punched the air with joy as he waited for the car to fully turn on. He saw that the gas gauge displayed half a tank, which wasn't perfect, but it would definitely take them a hell of a lot further than the RV would. He quickly turned off the engine so as not to fill the garage with exhaust fumes and then headed back into the house to share his discovery with the trio of ladies. Maybe their luck was finally about to change.

* * *

 **A/N: thanks for reading!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

As he opened the last drawer in the kitchen to find it full of nothing but a bottle opener and about four dozen bottle caps, Castle huffed out a perturbed breath and slammed the drawer shut a bit harder than was necessary. Once again, they'd come up empty handed. The supplies they needed were getting harder and harder to find and, quite frankly, it was terrifying.

In the week and a half since they'd been lucky enough to find a fuel-efficient car that was drivable, their food situation had gone from bad to outright dire. Thanks to the deluge of rain, they still had a small (though ever-dwindling) supply of water, but they were down to a few cans of fruit and two protein bars each; that was all. Fortunately, they had been lucky enough to stumble upon not one but two cans of gasoline, but they were soon reaching the point that it no longer mattered how far they could drive if they'd starve before they got there.

When he heard footsteps on the stairs, he hurried back to the hall to see if his companion had any luck. Fortunately, she had, as he saw her carrying two open boxes of Pop-Tarts. "Woah—jackpot."

She let out a breathy laugh. "Yeah, someone—I'm guessing a teenaged boy by the looks of the bedroom—had these stashed under the bed."

A smirk crossed his face wen he noticed a grimace on her face even though she clearly tried to hide it. "They were next to some dirty magazines, weren't they?"

She let out a long, slightly miserable sounding exhale. "I wish. It was a bottle of lotion and a sock."

Castle let out the first real laugh he'd had in weeks—and Kate instantly scolded him for it.

"Stop! That's disgusting. I don't even want to eat these except for the fact that we're literally starving to death."

"Oh, come on," he said flippantly as he took one of the boxes and examined it. "The wrappers are still sealed; they're not tainted."

She blinked at him. "You didn't see the sock!"

"Oh, I can imagine it; I was a teenage boy once, too."

"Gross," she commented before passing by him on the way out of the house. "I assume you found nothing?"

"Nada."

He watched as she reached out for the door handle, but then drew her hand back, and slowly turned back to face him. She turned her gaze towards the boxes she held and then slowly looked up at him with anxiety-filled eyes. "This'll buy us another two days but…"

"I know," he said so she didn't have to finish her thought. He stepped up to her, placed his hand on her shoulder, and forced out a smile he wasn't sure he had any right to give. "We'll figure something out—we have to."

She turned her gaze towards the ground again and confessed. "More and more I'm afraid there will be a time when we can't."

He felt his heart clench inside his chest at her tone. She clearly believed that point in time to be an inevitability. If he was one hundred percent honest with himself, he would have admitted to having similar fears, but he knew such pessimism would not aid in their situation. Now that he'd regained his health and his optimism along with it, Castle knew that he had to be the strong one. He couldn't break or falter in hopes that the women he traveled with would follow suit.

Instead of acknowledging her comment, he merely gave her shoulder a strong squeeze and said, "C'mon; let's see if your mother and Alexis found anything in the house next door."

* * *

"Wait—what…Rick, wait! Stop the car!"

Castle moved his foot over to the break and pressed down hard as he looked at the woman beside him in the front of the car. "What is it? Did you see something?"

"I think so but—can you back up a little bit? Slowly?"

He moved the car into reverse and gave it just a little bit of gas so that it would begin to roll backwards. After about a car length she said, "Stop!" and he did as asked. Then, she pointed to something strange that could be seen from behind a row of trees. "What's that?"

"It…it almost looks like a wall," Johanna said from the back seat. "Would that make sense?"

"It's not just a wall," Kate corrected. "It's too big, too…" Her voice drifted off for a moment and she turned to look him in the eye. "It looks like something that was built to keep unwanted things out."

His eyes widened at her implication. "Like…it's new? Like someone built a fortress against those things?"

She gave a little shrug. "Maybe, but if it is a fortress, it would be more than just 'someone.'"

Castle bobbed his head in agreement. Though it was still difficult to see through the trees, now that his eyes had focused in on the structure made up of different pieces of corrugated metal and wood, he could tell it expanded well beyond their field of vision. "So…you wanna check it out?"

"Is that a good idea? You have no idea what could be behind that wall. Those people could be heavily armed; they could be dangerous."

Castle glanced back at the elder woman in the back seat and considered her words. Of course what she said was entirely valid; whatever lay behind that wall could absolutely be dangerous, but it just as easily could be their salvation. Given that their supplies were at a critical low, he believed it was worth checking out.

Turning his eyes back to Kate he said, "We'll approach slow, keep our distance, and just check it out."

"Okay," she agreed.

Castle pulled the car off the main road and left the keys with Johanna while he and Kate went on their expedition. Once they made it through the closest section of trees they were able to see the wall structure more clearly and it truly was an impressive sight—no less than twelve feet tall and spanned nearly as far as they could see. The wall looked solid despite its mismatched materials, though its looming size brought Johanna's comments to the forefront of his mind.

"Left or right?" Kate whispered to him as they hid behind a cluster of trees.

"Left," he whispered back after determining that direction had more tree cover.

After walking for a few minutes they finally were able to see the end of the wall. Or, rather, the corner of the wall, because they quickly realized the structure was indeed a fortress—or seemed to be from where they stood. They made a wide turn, sneaking around behind a row of abandoned houses to continue following the structure. Castle estimated they covered the distance of at least two Manhattan blocks before they came to another corner of the wall, still without seeing any point of egress.

They continued on their exploratory trek until they heard a terrifying announcement from behind—or, rather, above—the wall.

"Stop! You in the trees! If you're alive, come out with your hands up—otherwise we'll shoot!"

"Fuck." Castle halted immediately in his tracks and whispered out the curse. He rotated head back to catch a glimpse of his companion who appeared equally shocked and terrified. He knew they had mere seconds to respond before the threatened shooting would commence, but he could not immediately decide on the right decision. Was Johanna right? Would these well-armed strangers be their demise? Or could they offer the salvation they'd yet to find for themselves?

"What's going on?" he heard from above, though in a quieter tone.

"I think I saw someone."

"A biter?"

"No, I don't think so; they were moving too quietly."

Hearing the conversation between the two men gave Castle the strength to choose to believe in the later scenario; these people could help them. At least, they had to try.

After giving Kate a solid nod, he stepped out from behind the tree line with both hands over his head. "Don't shoot—please." From the corner of his eye he watched Kate mirror his actions.

"Who are you?"

Castle lifted his gaze, but from the angle of the sun he was unable to see the person speaking to them from above the wall. "We, ah, we're just looking for food, shelter."

"Just the two of you?"

"No. We're also traveling with an older woman and a twelve-year-old girl."

"Do you have any supplies with you?"

Castle felt his heart stutter for fear that these fort-dwellers might have unsavory motives. He glanced briefly at Kate, who was staring steadily upwards, and then said, "Ah…not much. We have a working car, some gasoline, a tent…that's about it."

The man behind the wall was silent for thirty seconds before he said, "Come to the gate."

"Where's that?"

"Keep walking to your left."

Feeling it was now safe to do so, Castle lowered his arms and gave his companion another look. She gazed back with uncertainty, but they did continue their trek along the wall. Within a few hundred feet Castle could see what he thought was the gate, but given the angle from which they approached he couldn't see much else. The closer they got, though, one of the large wooden doors began to slowly creep open. Though he wasn't sure what made him do it, Castle reached back and took ahold of Kate's left hand; she didn't pull away.

When they were about ten feet away from the gate, a man stepped out holding a large rifle that made Castle stop in his tracks. Kate bumped into his side, but then he heard her gasp softly, presumably upon sight of the weapon. He moved no closer to keep a safe distance as he studied the man who appeared to be around his age, maybe a few years older, and certainly a lot balder.

"Hello. What are your names?"

"I…I'm Rick and this is Kate."

"Where are you from?"

"Manhattan originally," Kate answered.

The man nodded. "That's a long way off."

"Well, we had to travel a lot on foot," Kate told him.

"We've been trying to get south for the winter. I believe we've crossed into Georgia?" Castle added, knowing they'd passed a sign not too far back.

The man bobbed his head. "You're about twenty miles in. Where's the rest of your group?"

"In a car maybe mile or so away," Rick said.

The man gazed at them for a moment before asking, "Do you have any guns? Weapons?"

"A knife, a screw driver—and we have an axe back in the car."

The strange man appeared amused by this last point, and then he beckoned them forward. "Have to check you for weapons; I hope you understand."

Castle said nothing, but he was forced to drop Kate's hand while the gun-toting man patted them down. When he was satisfied he slung the shotgun over his shoulder with a strap and said, "My name's Trevor, by the way. Would you like to take a look inside?"

"Ah…yeah—yes. Please." He glanced at Kate briefly and then followed Trevor in through the wooden door. Just inside, he felt as though he'd walked into a concrete wall for he couldn't have moved another step if he wanted to; he was too stunned.

"A neighborhood," Kate exhaled with amazement, saying the words he could not. She stepped forward and gazed around the area with an open jaw before turning to Trevor. "How—how long have you been here?"

Trevor skimmed one hand through what little hair he had left and said, "Moved in about…oh, five years go."

This comment rattled Castle loose from his trance and he asked, "Wait—you…you never left?"

"Nope."

"Did you…did you build these walls?"

"We all did. Well, all of us that chose to stay. We've had some others stumble upon us just like you two."

"I…" Castle's voice drifted off as he gazed between the houses that looked as though nothing in the outside world had changed, Kate, who appeared to have tears forming in her eyes, and Trevor, who seemed shockingly nonplused for someone who had threatened to shoot them not five minutes earlier. "This is incredible."

Truly, he wouldn't have believed it if he wasn't looking at it with his own two eyes, but there it was—a community.

"Listen—before we can invite you to stay, we have a sort of review board you'll have to speak with. Why don't you get the rest of your group and come back? In the mean time I'll try to round everyone up."

"I, um," still rather stunned, Castle looked at Kate and gave a little shrug.

"Okay," she agreed.

Still half in a daze Castle followed Kate out of the wooden gate and they began the trek back towards the car. They'd hardly made it more than halfway to the fort's first corner when she stopped, turned back, and smiled at him. "I think…I think we made it."

His expression mirrored hers in an instant. "I think we did, too." Then, as a happy laugh escaped his lips, he stepped forward and pulled her into a tight hug. Her arms banded around his waist and he rested his cheek atop her head. Shutting his eyes, he sighed out with relief.

They had made it; they were going to be okay.

* * *

"Well, I suppose you all would like to get settled before it gets too dark, right?"

Kate let out a light laugh, still feeling overwhelmed by her state of utter disbelief. "Ah, ye-yeah, that would be great."

Megan, the tall woman with black hair who had become their makeshift tour guide, nodded and ushered for the quartet to follow her through one of the cul-de-sacs encased in the wood-and-metal fortress. "Yours will be house number 252 on the far side of the road here. As I said, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are in their late seventies now and I'm sure they won't mind having some younger adults around to help them with cleaning and other chores."

"We'll gladly do whatever they want us to; we're just grateful to be here," Rick said.

As Megan led the way, Kate gazed at the surrounding houses with no small amount of disbelief. If she ignored the looming walls surrounding the area, she didn't imagine the street looked much different than it had nine months earlier—back before everything fell apart. Children played with toys in driveways or rode their bikes along the street. Men and women sat on their front porches talking. It all seemed so…normal; she could hardly believe it was real.

By the time they returned to the community with her mother and Alexis in tow, Kate was concerned about what sort of vetting process they would need to go through in order to be accepted, she needn't have been. Trevor met them at the gate once more and took them into the closest house, where two men and a woman awaited them. They were asked a handful of questions about where they were from, what they'd experienced, and who they were before everything fell apart—and that was it. She was almost too shocked to respond when their next inquiry was about whether or not they'd be able to pitch in and help with neighborhood chores.

As it turned out, the community they called Thorndale Place, which was actually just the name of the main street running through it, seemed quite pleased that they were there. According to what Megan told them, several families had chosen to leave as the winter became colder deciding to use the near apocalypse as an excuse to move to Florida, so their numbers had dwindled. The community was looking for anyone willing to be a school teacher and for people to help cultivate land in order to grow food that spring. Johanna volunteered to teach and Rick offered to help with the farming while Kate promised she'd help wherever she could in order to earn her keep.

Megan had laughed when she said this. "Don't worry; we're not going to kick you out if it takes a few tries to find something you're interested in."

She almost immediately felt the urge to cry and, judging by the expressions of those around her, her traveling companions were feeling quite emotional as well. The community truly was a miracle.

After a few minute walk Megan climbed up on the porch of house number 252 and wrapped her knuckles against the front door. A moment later, a grey-haired woman opened it, and then smiled down at the group hanging back towards the sidewalk. "Well don't just stand there in the cold; c'mon inside," she said while waving them towards her.

"I'll let you all get settled in—have a good night," Megan told them before slipping away.

Kate followed Rick inside the home and took in the hardwood floors, stairs leading to a second floor, and the large living room warmed and lit by a wood-burning fireplace in the corner. It wasn't dirty, ransacked, or filled with moaning beasts; it felt like paradise.

"We are so grateful for your hospitality, Mrs. Anderson," Rick began. "Please let us know if there's anything we can do for you or whatever rules you'd like us to follow."

The elder woman waived her hand flippantly. "No rules—nothing quite as serious as that. Let me just take you upstairs so you can get settled in. There are three bedrooms up here, so that should be enough." She paused while she led the way upstairs, gripping firmly onto the handrail as she went. On the second floor landing she turned left and pointed towards a closed door. "This room is a little smaller, but there's a queen-sized bed, and it's more private; should be perfect for you two."

"Oh no we're-"

"No, we're not—not a couple."

Kate and Rick immediately refuted Mrs. Anderson's suggestion that they share a room—and a bed.

"Sorry," Kate continued when she saw the wrinkles in older woman's brow deepen. "It's our fault for not making this clear. We're not a couple; we're just traveling together."

"Yes, this is my daughter, and that's her mother; we found each other on the road," Rick explained further.

Mrs. Anderson nodded. "I see, I see; my mistake. Well, I'll let y'all sort out your sleeping arrangements. The opposite side of the hall has a room with a double bed, and another that we used as an office, but we have an air mattress that can be blown up with a hand pump."

"I'll take that," Rick said immediately, but Kate refuted him.

"Don't be ridiculous. You take the queen, Mom and I will take the double, and Alexis can have the air mattress."

"But-"

"C'mon Dad," Alexis sighed sounding rather tired, "you know you're too tall for air mattresses—remember what happened at my sleepover?"

"Right."

Kate watched as Rick's expression turned peculiar and she wondered what kind of amusing story she was missing out on.

Before leaving them, Mrs. Anderson went on to explain that there were bathroom facilities set up in the back yard, spare blankets and pillows in the hall closet, and that they could come and find her in the downstairs bedroom at any time if they needed anything. All other explanations about their new lives in Thorndale Place would wait until morning.

"Okay, pumpkin, let's get your air mattress set up," Rick said to his daughter before guiding her down the opposite hall. Kate and her mother trailed along behind. They took a peek into the room they'd be sharing, which seemed like a fairly basic guest room, before hovering in the door of the office and watching Rick wrestle the air mattress out of its box while Alexis lazily poked at some of the keys on the desk's computer keyboard.

"Do you think any of this stuff will ever work again?"

"What's that sweetie?" Rick grunted when he finally pulled the mattress from its box.

"Computers and TVs—will they ever work again?" she asked him before turning her gaze to Kate and her mother.

Kate gave a little shrug and then turned her gaze to Rick, seeking out his opinion. He shrugged, too. "I don't think we have any way of knowing that right now, Alexis; let's just be thankful we have a place to stay and take things one day at a time."

"Okay, Dad."

Kate gave her a smile and then knelt down on the ground to help Rick unroll the air mattress. She had no idea whether or not they'd ever have television, internet, or even electricity again, but Rick was right. They needed to be grateful for what they had in that moment. As for the rest, they would simply have to wait and see.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Standing at the top of the stairs, Castle skimmed his right foot along the carpet edge of the top step. He reached his toes out long until he felt them curl around the step edge thus giving him proximity as far as where he stood. He moved his left foot closer to the right, then slowly lifted it and lowered it down onto the first step. He repeated the process with his right foot until he was successfully descending the stairs, which was a much more tedious task since his arms were piled so high with laundry he could not see overtop of the mound.

Of course Castle could have made two trips up and down the stairs for all their laundry, but where was the fun in that?

Once his foot made contact with the hardwood surface of the foyer, he turned sharply to his right and rounded the corner of the hall leading back to the kitchen. This trek was a bit trickier as he was still unfamiliar with the Anderson's home, but he managed it. One he crossed into the kitchen area he slowed his walk to a shuffle until his left big toe bumped into something hard. He then pitched forward and successfully dumped the laundry pile onto the kitchen table. Perfect!

Smiling at his success, Castle moved towards the opposite side of the table when something in the hallway caught his eye. Looking closer he realized it was a rogue sock that had escaped his laundry bundle. Rolling his eyes slightly, he returned to the foyer to scoop it up only to see that the festive garland wound around the stair banister had come loose and was hanging towards the ground. Operating under the assumption that he had been the one to dislodge it when he was coming down the stairs, Castle threw the sock over his right shoulder and re-hung the garland appropriately before returning to his laundry pile.

Though Christmas had been three days earlier, he definitely was not yet ready to take down all the decorations he'd hung all over the Anderson's home. He really had not intended to decorate as much as he did, but as soon as he realized Mrs. Anderson loved Christmas almost as much as he did, he decided to go all out. He'd even asked some neighbors if they had decorations that weren't being used. Even though everyone other than Mrs. A rolled their eyes at him—Alexis included—he didn't care as it was the first time in nearly a year that things had felt…well, hopeful.

Back in the kitchen, Castle tossed the sock on the top of his laundry pile and moved over to the two 30-Gallon-size storage containers filled with lukewarm water, one of which had a cluster of soap bubbles floating atop it. He grabbed a few handfuls of clothing, tossed them into the soapy water bin, and then reached out for the wooden broom handle to use as an agitator for cleaning purposes. The process was admittedly quite bizarre, but surprisingly functional and even a little bit amusing, like most things in their new, post-apocalyptic life.

Three weeks had passed since they stumbled upon Thorndale Place and moved in with the Andersons and Castle felt as though they were finally beginning to find their footing there. Things were feeling more natural and less awkward. He had learned the names of the majority of their fellow community members and was slowly letting go of the stress of continually traveling and trying to survive.

For the first few days after their arrival, Castle felt he could hardly relax at all. Rationally he knew that they were in a secure place with nearly impenetrable walls not to mention locked doors and window, but he simply could not let go. He'd try to sleep for a few hours, but always end up awake, pacing the halls or checking on his daughter and watching her sleep. On his third night of such behavior he bumped into Kate as she descended the stairs, convinced she'd heard something in the back yard.

Over the next few nights he discovered Kate also struggled to sleep, so they would sit up together, sometimes downstairs, but most times in his room, watching the empty streets from the second-story windows. They never really said anything during this time, but they would sit together for an hour or so before she wandered back to her bed. Once, she'd fallen asleep curled up on the end of his mattress and had apologized profusely the next morning, but he hadn't minded. In fact, he'd grown so accustomed to sharing tight quarters with her that having her so close to him again had actually been rather nice.

By the time they'd been with the Andersons a little over a week, Castle found it increasingly easier to stay asleep longer and not to wake up in a panic during the wee hours of the morning. He also felt more relaxed the more involved they all became with the community. Johanna began to work at the makeshift school they'd set up so that their fourteen resident children didn't fall too far behind. Alexis, much to her chagrin, began attending school, too. He and Kate were educated in the community's water collection system and food stores, which were, admittedly, very impressive, all in the hopes that as soon as soon as January had passed they would begin to plant crops for spring.

After he felt he'd swished the laundry through the soapy water enough, Castle scooped each piece into the rinse water container and swirled it around for several moments before gathering up the sopping pieces and walking out onto the back porch with them. He rung each item out as best he could and then draped it across the clothing lines hung in the backyard, wanting them to get as much time in the sun before clouds ruined their drying process.

Castle chuckled to himself at the concept of hanging wash out during the week after Christmas. Up north, such a notion would have been unfathomable. (Actually, for many New York high-rise dwellers such as himself, just the concept of a wash line was almost unfathomable, but that was beyond the point.) Thankfully, in Georgia that day was in the mid-fifties, which was certainly not ideal for drying laundry, but it was the best they had in that situation.

As menial tasks such as laundry and cooking generally helped him think through difficult parts of his writing, Castle was no stranger to either. He didn't mind doing laundry for himself, or even for the entire household, but it certainly would have been far more convenient to do with a washing machine. The large containers of water were difficult to deal with and made an absolute mess in the kitchen, which was also their showering space, strange as that was, but it was simply one of the more bizarre part of their new life he had to get used to.

Returning to the kitchen, Castle intended on working on the next batch—er, "load"—of laundry when a noise out in the foyer caught his attention. He leaned his torso to the side so he could peek down the hall and immediately noticed the end of the garland was swinging freely towards the ground. Grumbling to himself, he began to turn back to the laundry, when another form of movement in the hall caught his eye. He watched as a slender hand curled around the edge of the banisher and tugged some of the garland back in place. Then, a moment later, Kate came into view as she crouched down and attempted to secure the greenery so it did not come loose again. Castle quickly moved to his left so that he would not be caught watching her, particularly not while wearing the ear-to-ear grin he knew was on his face.

If he was forced to pick one person in the household who teased him about the Christmas decorations more than any other, the answer would be Kate; no contest. She found the fact that he'd decorated the banister, windows, fireplace mantel, and even the dining room table at which they ate their meals positively absurd and never missed an opportunity to poke fun at him, particularly after he came in from the neighbors with yet another full box of green and red décor. When he'd asked her why she was acting like the Grinch, she'd merely shrugged and said, "It's not like this can be like a real Christmas, so what's the point?"

On some level, he understood her statements. Though Christmas was far and above his favorite holiday, Castle fully admitted to having absolutely zero yuletide aspirations until they'd arrived in Thorndale Place. Up to that point, he was too focused on their dire situation to even process what time of year it was. Then once they'd settled in and he realized they were less than two weeks away he'd felt the urge to decorate, to desperately cling on to what meager scraps of normalcy they had left, lest they vanish forever. Kate was right, though—there would be no exchanging of presents or delicious meal. They wouldn't have homemade cookies or decadent candies. No one would be able to watch _Miracle on 34_ _th_ _Street_ or _It's a Wonderful Life_ on TV. But they could still sing carols, share stories, and enjoy each other's company. In the end, he chose to believe Kate had a better Christmas than she cared to admit, bit watching her right his decorations certainly brought a smile to his face.

Glancing around the corner into the hall once more, he saw that Kate was now standing in front of the mirror hung on the wall opposite the stairs. She had a hair rubber band clamped in her teeth and was using both hands to rake her chestnut-brown locks back from her face. Watching her twist the rubber band around her ponytail was certainly not an overtly sexy maneuver, but the way she smoothed her fingers over her scalp and then dragged them down the sides of her face made tingles swirl through his chest and settle in his low-belly.

 _Shit_. Castle thought to himself as he quickly popped back into a hidden position in the kitchen. So what he felt the morning he woke up with her in bed beside him hadn't been a fluke. He was attracted to her, and honestly probably had been for quite some time, but those feelings were buried beneath fear and desperation for survival. Now that they were safe, and the fear had vanished, it could be replaced by other more lovely thoughts like how beautiful and kind Kate was. She made him smile; she made him laugh. She had saved him and his daughter without ever being asked to do so.

"Hey."

Castle jumped when Kate's voice interrupted his romantic thoughts. He took a step back and his foot nearly landed in the soapy water bin. Instead, he kicked it, splashed water onto the floor, and spluttered as he struggled to keep himself in check. "H-hi—hey. What…what's up?"

She arched one eyebrow in his direction. "Nothing. Are you okay?"

"Fine!" he squeaked out, his voice breaking a bit. "Just, um, laundry."

Her gaze remained suspicious for another few moments until she shrugged and said, "Okay. I'm going to the supply garage to see if they have any lotion—my hands are so dry now that we're, you know, regularly washing dishes and stuff."

"Right…"

"Need anything?"

He leaned his hands against the back of a kitchen chair trying to appear casual. "N-no; I'm fine."

"Okay…" She turned to leave, threw one more curious glance over her shoulder, and then continued out into the hall. It wasn't until he heard the front door open and shut that Castle dropped his chin to his chest with relief. Jesus! Now he was acting like an insane teenage boy!

The laundry now forgotten, Castle merely stood in the kitchen staring down the hall at the closed front door. How had he not realized until that moment just how strong his feelings were for Kate? True, he felt more relaxed and comfortable with each passing day; his brain was slowly returning to normal, but his feelings seemed so strong so suddenly. He could see them making dinner together, reading a book side-by-side on the couch, and then retiring to his bedroom, closing the door, and spending hours getting lost in each other.

The vision of their bodies entwined together nearly startled him since for the prior few years the only woman he'd thought of that way was his publisher-turned-girlfriend-turned-fiancée, Gina. When she had died so suddenly his heart had certainly been broken, but that had been nearly a year earlier. He actually hadn't thought about her in quite some time, but now that she had returned to his mind, the crushing heartbreak had as well.

Could he really stand to lose another love that way?

He could see himself falling hard for Kate—almost too easily—but was that the right thing to do when they remained surrounded by so much uncertainty? Yes, for that moment they were safe behind high walls and surrounded by good people, but how long would their paradise last? Could Thorndale's walls be breached? What if they ran low on supplies? Would they have to go out on the road again? If they did, what would happen if Kate fell ill or was attacked?

Worst of all: what if she wasn't interested in him the same way he was interested in her?

Shaking his head of such unnecessarily painful thoughts, Castle decided to turn back to the laundry. He didn't want to ignore his newfound feelings for Kate; quite the opposite in fact. He had every intention of thinking through how he felt for her and how a romantic relationship between them might change the dynamics of their newly-formed family. For most of his life he had found himself diving headlong into relationships when his feelings were strong, but that was back when they lived in a world that made sense, a world without constant uncertainty. For the first time in his life, Castle was going to look before he leapt.

* * *

"You're sure you don't want to come?" Kate asked her mother when the extra sweater she was pulling on cleared her field of vision. She pulled the end of her ponytail out of the neck of the sweater and tugged at the hem so it lay flat across her hip.

From her spot standing beside the bed, Johanna let out a soft laugh. "No, no I'll be perfectly fine in here—asleep." With that, she peeled back her side of the covers and sat down, clearly indicating how serious she was about falling asleep well before midnight.

"Okay…" Kate said, her voice clearly showing her hesitation. If her mother didn't want to stand outside in the cold with the rest of the residents, she couldn't blame her for that; the night was quite chilly. However, she was pretty sure their festivities could be seen from the front windows of the house. Plus, it was New Year's Eve—who wanted to go to bed before midnight?

Johanna gave her a curious smile. "If you really don't want to go by yourself, you should take Rick with you—at least then you'll get a kiss at midnight."

"Mom!" Kate squeaked in response to her mother's blunt and slightly inappropriate comment. She had no problem going to the neighborhood party alone and certainly had no qualms over not receiving a kiss at midnight. After everything they'd survived that year, she simply wanted to celebrate and socialize. If Rick happened to be there, great! The more the merrier. But she certainly hadn't thought about ringing in the new year with her lips against his…

…at least, not more than once or twice.

Still wearing her smile, she simply said, "Good night, Katie."

Kate echoed her sentiments a bit tersely before walking out into the hall, closing the bedroom door behind her. As Alexis had already been sent to bed, Kate tried to walk quietly down the hall. She reached the top of the stairs, placed her hand on the banister, but stopped before going any further. Dragging her teeth over her bottom lip, she turned her head towards Rick's room, half expecting it to be dark, but it was not. A faint glow could be seen inside and, after a moment of staring, she even noticed a shadow passing through the light. Now curious, she continued down the hall to investigate.

From the doorway of Rick's space she could see that he sat on his bed, back propped up against the headboard. He was reading by the light of one of the batter-powered lamps they had. She had to admit to being surprised to see him there. Considering the amount of zeal he had towards Christmas, she figured he'd celebrate its neighboring holiday similarly.

Now curious, she tapped her knuckles against the edge of the doorframe until he looked up at her a bit startled. "Oh—hey."

"You're not outside?"

He placed the book down on the bed beside him and shrugged. "No…I guess I felt kind of silly going out there by myself."

Her brow rose in surprise. "Silly? Why?"

"Dunno…we're still new here and…I just wasn't sure."

Kate gazed at him for a moment, not intending to stare, but also finding his comments very odd and…un-Rick-like. Come to think of it, he had been acting a bit peculiar over the prior few days. It wasn't anything major; he just seemed atypically quiet and reserved, especially after how enthusiastic he on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Perhaps, she rationalized, he was simply missing family that he'd been unable to share that time with, which was even more reason for him not to remain secluded in his room.

"C'mon," she said, waiving her left arm out and beckoning him towards her. "Get your shoes on; we're going out."

"Really?"

"Yeah." She laughed at how surprised he sounded. "I was on my way out anyway."

"Okay!"

When he hopped off the bed and began searching for his shoes, Kate descended to the first floor and pulled on her coat, which hung in the closet by the door. A few moments later Rick jogged on the steps and grabbed his coat, too. Then, they stepped outside and walked down the front yard towards the celebration happening at the entrance of the cul-de-sac.

"Well, at least it's warmer here than it would be in New York."

"Definitely," she agreed. The air temperature that night was in the upper thirties with a light breeze blowing, but she knew back in Manhattan the temperature could have been ten, twenty, or even thirty degrees colder based on what she'd experienced growing up. "Did you ever do Times Square?"

"Yep. Froze my ass off both times. Well, I would have if I hadn't been pretty drunk. You?"

She shook her head. "I intended to once, but my friends and I got sidetracked and never ended up going. Don't think I missed out on much."

"Not really," he said with a smile.

Once they met up with the other revelers they were greeted with cheers and laughter. One of the men was passing around small paper cups filled with shots of his home-brewed liquor. Kate politely refused, but Rick took one and gulped it down. Based on the expression on his face once he swallowed, Kate felt she had made the correct decision.

They mingled separately in the group for ten minutes before circling back to each other as the groups ringleader, a man in his mid-thirties named Brandon, announced it was almost time for them to begin their midnight countdown. They had no Swarovski crystal ball to drop from high above, but instead had rigged a pully system with two ladders and a basketball with the numbers 2009 painted on it in white.

Kate and Rick stood side-by-side at the edge of the group as they counted down loudly until the stroke of midnight. The basketball dropped to the ground, and everyone began to cheer; a few even blew party whistles. Laughing, Kate turned to her companion and said, "Happy New Year!"

"Happy New Year," he echoed. Then, he looked her up and down and stuck his hand out. "Um…celebratory handshake?" he suggested in a tone that sounded rather uncertain.

"You don't want to kiss?" The words had escaped her lips before she realized, and she was glad the street was so dark, because she knew he cheeks had grown pink, but she couldn't help it. A handshake? A handshake!? How ridiculously impersonal after everything they'd been through together!

"Wha—I, um, what you—I mean-"

"Sorry; I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," she said in response to his awkward stammering. Well, now she'd really done it; she'd made things totally weird (even if his handshake suggestion had started their strange trajectory). Wanting to save face before he noticed how embarrassed she was, Kate turned to walk back towards the Anderson house, but before she could take more than a step she felt a large hand close around her elbow.

"Wait, please."

She turned her head to face him, though she still leaned away.

"I'm sorry," he continued. "You didn't make me uncomfortable. I was just a bit…startled. I didn't expect—I mean, I didn't want to suggest a kiss and make _you_ uncomfortable."

"O-oh," she stammered as now she was the one caught off-guard. "No, no—I wouldn't be. I mean, it's just a New Year's Eve kiss, right?"

"Right. Um…yeah, okay." He rested a hand on each of her shoulders and leaned his head down tentatively. She met halfway by rising up on her toes and pressing her lips briefly against his. Their kiss was as basic as could be, but when she stepped back and saw he was wearing a rather dopey smile it still made her heart flutter.

They stared at each other for a few moments before Castle was jostled by one of the partygoers trying to exit the group of people. He stepped up beside Kate to move out of the way, but as she noticed many of the guests going their separate ways, she suggested simply, "Let's go back."

"Yeah, party's over, I guess."

They walked the three minutes back to their house in relative silence, but once they reached the front walkway, Rick stopped, turned, and faced the street again. He gazed at the remaining revelers for a moment before looking at her and saying, "You know, I think this year is going to be much better than last year."

A mirthless laugh escaped her lips. "That's a pretty low bar, Rick," she pointed out, very much doubting that humanity could dissipate any further without taking all living beings down with it.

"True, but I can feel it."

She sighed and stuffed her hands down into her coat pockets. A year earlier, people in that neighborhood would have been in their houses watching the festivities on their televisions, or out celebrating at a friend's house, or maybe even a bar. They would have been driving cars, certainly using plenty of electricity, and never had to worry about running out of food or water. Such a life now seemed as fantastical as if it involved magic wands or fire-breathing dragons.

"You think we'll ever get this thing figured out? That the monsters will go away, dead people won't come back to life and…" She let out a heavy sigh as she gazed up at him. "Do you think we can ever go back?"

He let out an audible breath. "Honestly? No. I…I don't think it'll be the way it was—at least, not for a very long time, but I do think we can get pieces of it back. If we work hard, if we work together…we'll build something new."

She reached out and squeezed his arm saying, "I really hope you're right."


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

 **April**

"Crap!" Kate groaned to herself when she felt a scrape against the back of her hand. She pulled her hand out of the cabinet she'd been reaching in and took note of the several-inch-long scratch mark just below her knuckles. It wasn't deep, but it stung uncomfortably. She stood up on her toes and shined her flashlight into the cabinet to see what had caused her injury. About halfway back on one side she saw that the cabinet wood was splintered and sticking out, almost appearing as though there had once been a prong to hold a shelf in place in that spot but it had been removed.

Glad the scrape had not been caused by rusty metal, Kate returned to her rummaging, but found nothing useful. She rocked back on her heels and stood before shutting both cabinet doors and walking out into the hall. She truly had not expected to find anything useful in the laundry room's cabinets, but she had to look just in case; she always looked.

Back in the beginning, going through abandoned homes and buildings had made Kate incredibly uncomfortable. She didn't care if they were starving or if the home was clearly vacant; going through others' belongings was just wrong! She'd tip toe in look through the kitchen cabinets as swiftly as she could, and then hurry out—almost as though she was expecting to be caught by the sleeping residents upstairs. Now, a full year later, she had no such qualms. She'd go through every drawer and every cabinet she could find, never knowing where usable supplies could be found.

Walking back towards the stairs, Kate opened the only remaining closed door and found it to be a shallow closet. It contained mostly sheets and towels, which she did not need, but an opaque plastic storage bin at the bottom of the closet proved useful as it contained first aid supplies, a few feminine hygiene products, and condoms. She loaded all the items into her backpack, slung it over her shoulder, and then walked back down the stairs to see if her mother had any luck in the detached garage.

Stepping out onto the back porch, Kate smiled as the warm sunlight hit her face and simply stood there for a moment, soaking it all in. It had rained almost continuously for the prior week, so not only was she glad not to be cooped up inside, but also for the warm air instead of a damp chill. Now that it was April she hoped they'd have more sunny days than not, and the atmosphere certainly would be getting progressively warmer, but she never wanted to miss an opportunity to appreciate being outside on a lovely day.

Thanks to Thorndale Place and the kindness of those that resided there, Kate, her mother, Rick, and Alexis had survived the winter months almost without difficulty. They had only a few days of snow, and even then it barley lay on the ground. The temperatures were still cold, but much warmer than she was used to in New York, which meant those three chilly months were quite bearable. Most importantly: they never ran low on either food or water. She felt confident that without their Georgian safe haven they might not have made it to spring. At best, they would have struggled greatly.

As nice as it was to have a safe, secure, comfortable winter, Kate also knew that the coming weeks would be challenging due to the fact that the food supplies at Thorndale Place were finally running low. They still had plenty to eat and their situation was not dire, but they did need to actively pursue collecting more supplies, which came with its own complications.

Since Thorndale Place had been a shelter for over a year, the immediate surrounding area, including two grocery stores, a school, and many neighborhoods full of houses had been picked clean of supplies. Thus, in order to restock, it was necessary to venture further and further out. This was fine as they had several working vehicles and a decent supply of gasoline; however, the same problem that Kate's group faced on their travels still existed: supplies were running low everywhere.

On that day, Kate and her mother had driven an hour south west of their compound in hopes of finding success. They'd searched several houses and had come up pretty empty-handed when it came to edible things, but they'd found a decent amount of other usable items, so their trip was not a total waste.

After giving up on her brief sunbathing, Kate walked the brick path towards the driveway where she found her mother loading a box into the back seat of their borrowed car. "Good stuff in the garage?" Kate asked.

Johanna shrugged. "Not great, not terrible. Mostly just random things—but I did find a few packs of batteries. How about you?"

She shrugged one shoulder out of her backpack and held open the flap so her mother could see its contents. "Not great. It was pretty picked through, but I did manage to find—what?" she asked when her mother snorted with laughter seemingly at random.

"Nothing."

"No, tell me."

Johanna shrugged. "Just laughing at the box of condoms; that's all."

Feeling slightly miffed, Kate secured her bag once more and asked, "Why are condoms so funny?"

"They're not. I just find it funny because you already have a lot of boxes of those."

"I wouldn't say a lot."

"But yet you keep getting more…"

"Why wouldn't I? These are a commodity."

Her mother laughed loudly. "Are they?"

She felt her cheeks grow a bit heated, but Kate stuck to her statement. "Of course they are. Now that everyone's birth control has long since run out, we could trade these for food, medicine—who knows what!"

Johanna arched a very suspicious eyebrow at her daughter. "You really think someone would trade condoms for medicine."

"You'd be surprised," Kate said, specifically thinking of the time she saw someone in Thorndale trade two cases of protein bars for a pack of cigarettes. Even in the apocalypse people's choices baffled her.

"Uh huh," Johanna responded, half chuckling. They climbed inside the car with Johanna in the driver's seat and she backed their vehicle out of the driveway and drove the several hundred feet to the next and final house on that street. As they exited the car once more, she said, "You know, instead of hanging on to them on the off chance someone would trade them for medicine, you could always start using them...have a little fun."

Kate clicked her tongue. "Mom! Gross!" Though she and her mother frequently had a very open dialog when it came to many areas of life, there was definitely a line, and that line was her mother outright telling her to have sex.

Johanna seemed nonplussed by her daughter's scolding. "I'm serious-you're barely twenty-eight years old; you shouldn't be alone. What about Doctor Dan?" she said, referencing the lone physician in their community. Luckily for them, Dan had been a resident in a local ER when the world went to hell, so he was well-versed in a variety of medical care. Also, as it happened, he was single.

"What? No."

"You two seemed friendly at game night the other week."

Kate rolled her eyes at her mother's interpretation of their scrabble game. "Yeah, I like Dan, but not like that. He's...I don't know; I'm not attracted to him." There wasn't anything wrong with him; he was a perfectly friendly guy, but she simply wasn't interested in doing anything more with him than playing board games.

"What about Mike?"

Kate shook her head. "Mike is sleeping with Megan-red-hair," she said as a way of distinguishing that Megan from the only other one in their group: the dark-haired woman they'd met their first day at Thorndale.

Johanna's brow rose. "Really?"

"Yeah you didn't know that? Been a while...maybe since early January?" As she didn't feel the need to play into gossip, Kate didn't know the exact time their relationship began; nor did she care, but she had seen Mike sneaking out of Megan's house in the wee hours of the morning, so she merely assumed (particularly since the only other resident of that home was Megan's eighty-year-old grandfather).

"Okay then-what about Rick?"

Kate threw her hands up in frustration as she looked over at her mother. "Are you just going to name every single male in our community?"

"I would hardly lump Rick in with the others. So, what about him?"

Kate felt her heartrate spike as she avoided her mother's gaze. "Rick? No—no. He's...I mean we're—stop laughing at me!" she griped when Johanna's giggles turned into a snort.

"I'm sorry I can't help it. It's adorable watch you be in denial."

"Denial!"

"Yes, denial; you clearly like him."

"Rick is part of our new family; it would be weird," she said, clearly side-stepping the question.

"Would it?"

"Yes. We all live together and it...it would mess up our dynamic," she said, repeating the argument she'd been having inside her mind for months.

Johanna sighed audibly as they walked into the kitchen of the now-abandoned home. Leaning her back against the counter, she gazed at her daughter with an expression that hinted upon disappointment. "Katie...after everything we've been through are you really still doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"Protecting your heart so fiercely. Life is shorter than ever now; you should be happy."

"I am happy."

"And you don't want more?"

Kate felt her cheeks flush and brushed her hands back across the top of her head. "I…I don't know."

She understood what her mother was saying and openly admitted to being incredibly cautious when it came to relationships. She would keep all men at arm's length, refusing to let them get close enough to hurt her and thereby refusing to let herself feel anything more than superficial emotions towards them. She wasn't unhappy with that sort of life, but it also led to nights of feeling lonely and unfulfilled.

If she was asked whether or not she wanted to live her whole life without being in love, the answer would of course be no. She wanted to find a partner, get married, and have a family. Of course, the landscape of her future had changed drastically in the wake of everything that had happened, but she still didn't want to be alone. The thing was: she didn't feel alone.

Somehow over the almost six months since they fond one-another she, Rick, Alexis and Johanna had formed a new family. She couldn't imagine a day passing without hearing Alexis and Rick's silly tales or without them all enjoying a meal together. They made her laugh harder than she ever thought possible in a world without electricity or running water and that was certainly not something she wanted to let go of, but it wasn't that easy.

"What if…god! What if I said something to him and he thought I was crazy? What if he doesn't want—and, oh my god, what would I even say?" She slapped her right hand over her forehead at the embarrassment broiling inside of her at just the mental image of such a conversation. "'Hey Rick, you wanna go kill some monsters for our date? It'll be fun!' He would think I'm crazy!"

"Well you could probably come up with a better date than that," Johanna pointed out with a small smirk; Kate flashed her an unappreciative expression and she laughed. "Honey, you're worried about nothing; there is no way Rick would think that you're crazy."

"And how do you know that?"

"Because I've seen the way he looks at you when he thinks no one is watching."

Kate felt her cheeks flush furiously at this comment. _Shit!_ "I…I think we should stop talking about my love life and move on to yours. What are your thoughts on Doctor Dan?"

"He's far too young for me. Actually, I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed for me completely, but it hasn't for you," she pointed out softly.

"I…" Kate winced as her chest clenched with anxiety. "I'll think about it, okay?"

Johanna walked over and squeezed her daughter's arms. "Don't think too long, okay? In this world, there's no time like the present."

* * *

After placing his axe gently on the ground, Castle swiped at his brow with the back of his hand. He reached for the bottle of water he'd placed nearby and drained its contents in two gulps. Then, he stood back, planted his hands at his hips, and admired the pile of splintered boards he created.

Unusual as it was for his profession, Castle was actually quite familiar with the task of splitting firewood. The house he owned on the beach in Southampton had both a fireplace inside and a wood firepit outside on the deck. Of course, there were plenty of places to order firewood from, but he enjoyed splitting his own the few times he'd done it (the rest of the time he had it delivered).

Just as he began to pile the split logs into the wheelbarrow nearby, Castle though he heard someone calling out his name. Lifting his head, he spun around, trying to determine from where he heard the noise when he spotted a brunette woman approaching waving her arm high above her head. Castle smiled and didn't hesitate to wave back.

Though he would always be grateful to Kate for not only saving him but reuniting him with his daughter, over their six months of time together he was now glad to call her one of his very good friends—and that wasn't just because they lived in a community that only contained several dozen adults. He knew that even in a group of thousands they would have become close simply because of who she was and how he felt when he was around her.

Over the winter months he and Kate had spent many chilly evenings on the couch in the Anderson's home, chatting and sometimes even sharing the same blanket on their laps as they read. Those times with the two of them alone made him even happier that they had found each other; they made him even more confident in his feelings for her despite their tumultuous world. Unfortunately, that world had other plans.

About a month into the new year both Alexis and Johanna fell ill with flu-like symptoms. Half a dozen others became sick as well, completely baffling their doctor, who could not determine how the illness began as they had been completely isolated for weeks. No matter the source, the illness was still a serious one and ended up claiming the life of a woman in her eighties.

While Alexis bounced back quickly, Johanna had a harder time and remained ill for nearly two weeks. As Kate was rightfully distraught over her mother's sickness, Castle didn't feel right about broaching the subject of his romantic feelings, even though he'd felt ready to do so shortly before the incident. With her mother sick, Kate needed him as her friend and nothing more—and he was fine with that.

Johanna did eventually recover, but with all the arduous work they were doing trying to ready several back yards to grow crops that spring, Castle didn't think too much about his romantic status in the weeks thereafter. He simply needed to find the right time again and pray she was open to the idea when he did.

"Hey there," Castle sighed out when Kate walked within speaking distance. "You guys find anything good out there today?"

"Yeah, a decent amount. Mom and I both already carried a load inside; she went out to get the rest of the stuff and I came to say hi to you."

He smiled at these sentiments. "Well, thanks. You didn't find any chocolate did you?"

She frowned. "No. Sadly, I think the country's chocolate supply might be gone for now. We actually didn't find too much food; mostly toiletries and first-aid supplies."

"Well, those are still very useful. I'm just finishing up with this wood here so-"

"Need any help?"

"Sure," he smiled at her and then they began to load the wood into the wheelbarrow together. "I know I didn't cut that much, but with all that rain we've had its hard to find stuff that'll be dry enough to burn."

She flashed him a wry smile. "Isn't it interesting all the knowledge we have now that we would never have expected to use before?"

"Very interesting—especially all that stuff about farming. Thank god for Tom and Andy or we'd be lost!"

"I know!"

He sighed as he dumped the last few boards atop the new pile. "It's…a bit frustrating for me, you know? I loved doing research for my books—loved it. It was so fascinating to completely submerge myself in a topic I knew nothing about before. I wanted to learn all that I could, because that's the best way to write about it authentically. Now…I mean, there are still books to read and I suppose we could find a library to break into but…I really miss the internet."

Kate let out a surprisingly loud laugh. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I—hey," she cut off her own thought as her brow knitted together. "What's that over there?"

Castle turned in the direction she pointed and saw a peculiar movement he couldn't identify due to the low-hanging tree branches around them. "I'm not sure…" He moved further into a clearing area away from where he'd been wood-chopping and ducked his head to see beneath the branches. Feet—he thought he saw feet. Lots of feet actually, but that didn't make sense. The only way there could be that many feet clustered together was if their whole community was walking in a line—and that would never happen.

"I don't—shit!" He cursed loudly when the sound of inhuman growls finally hit his ear. "A hoard—that's a hoard!"

"Shit!"

He heard Kate mimic his curse as he spun around to pick up the axe he'd deposited earlier. Meeting her eyes, he said, "Go—make sure the gates are locked tight."

"I'm not leaving you out here!" she responded, her tone a bit frantic.

He shook off her rebuttal. "Someone has to make sure they don't get inside; go!"

Castle took off running towards the hoard, not really sure what his plan was, but knowing he had to do something before one of those beasts got inside; before one got to Alexis. He ran until he reached the community's walls, though he was still several hundred feet in front of the moaning bunch. He froze with his axe at the ready, staring them down, feeling as though he was on the set of a horror movie and not experiencing real life.

Though they were uncommon, this was not the first time the community had faced down a hoard of monsters. One had passed through not far into the new year. Their groaning and growling could be heard echoing inside the sanctuary of their walls, terrifying both adults and children alike. The walls and gate had both come under strain, but in the end the damage was minimal. The group simply hunkered down and waited for the herd to move on.

With so many people in their community out scavenging for supplies and goods, Castle knew they would not be as lucky that time around; he had to do something.

As the first wave of monsters stumbled within and arm's reach of him Castle found himself flanked by two other community residents leading him to conclude that Kate had gone back inside and sounded the panic alarm. That was good; he'd rather not face the hoard alone for doing so would certainly mean death.

Feeling a surge of adrenaline, Castle swung his axe hard and cracked the skull of the first monster, then the second. He felt they were making good progress until he realized how easily their trio could be flanked, so he fell back and moved around to the far side to chip away at any stragglers. Unfortunately, with the number of undead upon them and the slow speed at which they were being eliminated, the situation quickly grew out of hand. Castle tried to give himself more room to fight, but since he didn't want to turn his back to the creatures, he shuffled his way backwards and accidentally tripped over a rock.

Castle groaned when he landed with bone-rattling thud on the ground. He felt sharp pain in his right wrist and elbow, but had no chance to stop and assess the injury since the undead beings were still snarling and snapping in his direction. He groped frantically for his axe, but was unable to grab it before the closest monster was bumping against his feet. The being toppled forward on top of him, but thankfully Castle was able to react quick enough to catch it by the shoulders. By keeping his arms straight, he was able to keep the creature from biting him, but he did not know for how long as it clawed viciously at the jacket he wore.

"No, no," he whined as he looked around, trying to search for a solution, but found none. If he was to let go of one side of the creature in hopes of grabbing his axe, it would surely topple within biting distance of his flesh, and he couldn't risk that. "Shit," he cursed when he saw out of the corner of his eye that more were coming his way. He needed a plan; he needed a way out; he refused to have it all end this way.

Just when he was about to give the monster a hearty shove in hopes it bought him time, a shotgun blast rang out and everything went hazy.

* * *

 **A/N** : :)


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

"A horde! There's a horde coming!" Kate panted as she sprinted in through the open gate of Thorndale Place. The two closest men immediately dashed outside while a third ran deeper into the community, hopefully with the intent to sound an alarm.

Kate tightened the straps on her backpack as she rushed over to the supply crate that was kept near the entrance. She considered leaving the bag behind so she could move easier, but she feared having to briefly vacate the area of the community and didn't want to be without her knife and matches. Once the bag was snug against her body, she bent down and pulled the topmost shot gun off the pile in the crate and then hurried back out of the gates, making sure they shut behind her.

Up until she'd joined Abigail's group, Kate had never before touched a firearm. Since Abigail had two handguns guns and Kate and her mother often went on supply missions with her, she insisted they both learn how to fire them correctly in case they were ever needed in an emergency. Kate couldn't say she much cared for the weapons, but she appreciated Abigail's insistence for it helped her later on.

Thorndale place didn't have too many handguns, but they had almost a dozen shotguns. Once again, Kate was encouraged to learn how to use the weapons—oddly enough, by Rick. Evidently, he'd been trained by several marksmen as part of his novel research and he was actually a fairly decent shot. She couldn't really say if she'd acquired a knack for shooting, but in that moment she tried to hone every scrap of knowledge she had so she could help fight the horde.

Not wanting to accidentally shoot the men battling the monsters with hand tools, Kate looped far around the group and fired two rounds into the center of the horde. She took two creatures down and felt quite proud of herself until she heard a yelp that made her blood run cold. Turning, she spotted Rick on the ground with a creature looming above him growling and snapping its jaws.

Panic burst through her, shredding her insides and nearly destroying her focus, but she managed to keep herself together enough to raise the gun and aim. She didn't want to hurt Rick, but she also knew that shooting the creature off him was his best chance at survival. She lined up the shot, blew out a smooth, even breath, and squeezed the trigger.

Barely waiting to see the result, she took off running towards him yelling, "Get up, Rick!"

Thankfully, her shot had hit the mark, and the creatures head had practically exploded. Unfortunately, Rick was hit with a significant amount of debris, but given that he was able to follow her instructions and pop to his feet she didn't think he was injured. "C'mon! C'mon!" she called out, grabbing onto his arm and dragging him backwards as soon as he was close enough. She fired one more shot into the crowd, but then she was out of ammunition and had forgotten to grab any extra.

"Why aren't you inside the gate?" Rick questioned as he swiped the sleeve of his jacket over his brow to remove some of the muck that had landed there.

"Had to help. God! They're everywhere!" she proclaimed when she caught a good glimpse of the snarling group, which remained at least fifty strong. She glanced over at her companion to see that he had no weapon, so she lifted the gun, prepared to use it as a bashing implement if that's what was needed to save them. Apparently, Rick had other plans.

"C'mon—we have to fall back."

"Fall back?"

"We'll never fight out way through this. C'mon!" He grabbed onto her left arm and tugged her along with him. Kate dropped the gun so that she could move faster and they took off at a jogging pace, moving westward, away from the community. She followed Rick down a side street of houses, but they'd barely past the first one before he stopped so abruptly that she ran into the back of him.

"What's-" She began but her question was lost to his shout of, "Shit! They're over here too—turn back!"

Though she knew the roads surrounding Thorndale Place well, in her frantic state she became disoriented and instead of following the road, she turned ninety degrees and ran straight ahead, which actually took her through the yard of one of the houses. Rick was close at her heels by the time they emerged on the next street over, which was thankfully vacant of monsters and gave them a second to breathe.

"There are just so many of them!" she panted out.

Rick nodded in agreement, then his eyes focused on something ahead of them and he pointed. "That truck—it's one of ours, right?" he asked, referring to the vehicles that the group left parked randomly around the surrounding area for moments like those when a swift escape was needed.

"I think so." She followed him to the heavy-duty pickup and they both hopped inside the cab where Rick explained his plan.

"We're not going to take a group that size out one-by-one; there's too many, but if we mow some of them down with this truck that should help."

"Okay." She moved to put on her seatbelt while Rick pulled the keys out from where they were tucked inside the sun visor. He put the key in the ignition and turned it. The engine stuttered and stammered, but failed to turn over, even after he'd tried a second time.

"Shit," he cursed, banging the flat of his palm against the wheel.

Trying to think of a new course of action, Kate glanced back towards the direction they'd come from and saw with great distress that three of the monsters had followed their path up between the houses. Though that space a group could clearly be dealt with, they had no weapons on them other than pocket knives, which were a less than ideal tool. It would be best for them to circle back around to the community and hopefully regroup.

"We should move; there's some coming this way and we don't want to get trapped."

"Okay," Rick agreed. They exited the vehicle and jogged down the street away from the creatures trailing them. Within just half a block they arrived at an intersection from which the walls of Thorndale would be visible, but what they saw their stopped them dead in their tracks.

"God!" Kate proclaimed when she realized the horde had fully overrun the area immediately surrounding the entrance and there would be no way to get back inside. Turning to her left she saw that Rick appeared as horror struck as she felt.

He turned his head and caught her eye. "Guess we need a new plan."

"I…" She turned back towards the fence and saw with great relief that the gate was definitely closed; at least everyone inside would be safe. Those stuck on the outside, however…

"We have to move; we're sitting ducks out here."

"You want to go for the car you and your mom came back in? We know it works."

She shook her head. "What good would it do? We might be able to ram into a few of them, but I'm afraid we'd get overwhelmed by them and then be trapped inside. There's just no way we can fight our way through a pack that big."

For thirty seconds Rick remained silent and then he nodded his head and reached out his hand to grasp her arm. "C'mon; this way. I have an idea."

She followed him down the neighborhood streets for several minutes until they reached a two-lane road that was clearly a major throughway. About a quarter of the mile down that road stood a three-story glass office building, which Kate quickly realized was where Rick was headed. "What are we doing here?" she asked him when their pace slowed to a brisk walk.

He pointed up to the top floor. "It's the tallest structure around here. Plus, with all that glass, we'll be able to see Thorndale and anything surrounding it."

"Okay," she said, not really understanding how seeing the horde from a higher angle would be to their benefit, but going along with him anyway. "But I don't know if anyone ever cleared this building; it could be filled with undead."

He glanced back over his shoulder with a look clearly indicating disagreement. "Really? Who would stay at work after the world went to hell?"

She pressed her lips together, considering that statement. She couldn't say she disagreed, but that didn't mean the building was vacant. "What if people sought shelter in here and never made it out?"

"We'll go floor by floor and make sure it's safe; shouldn't be too hard. We just have to stick together." He gave her a reassuring smile and she reluctantly pulled the knife from her belt, hoping desperately that they encountered nothing unsavory inside.

After breaking their way through a glass door leading to the lobby, Kate and Rick swept the first floor, which was thankfully vacant. When Rick rattled the door to the stairwell, two growling creatures began to descend, but he was able to dispose of them quickly. Their search of the second floor also turned up nothing, so they went up to the third, which was also vacant. Once they'd confirmed that all offices, conference rooms, and bathrooms were clear, Rick blocked the door to the stairway with a desk so they knew they didn't have to watch their backs. Then, they walked around until they found the window that gave them the best view of Thorndale Place's secure walls.

Between the houses and trees it was impossible to get a clear view of the gate entrance, but they were able to see the clusters of undead milling about the clearing. From that height and distance, the creatures looked like ants swarming a piece of gum dropped on a sidewalk, but unfortunately their existence was far more unsettling than that.

Kate let out a heavy sigh as she leaned against the desk nearest where they stood. Even if they had access to a heavy arsenal of weapons, such a large group would be nearly impossible for two people to battle alone. True, those inside the community could help from their lookout perches along the wall, but they had no way to communicate to those people from the outside; they couldn't even facilitate some sort of joint assault. Glancing over and taking note of the deep furrows in her companion's brow she asked, "You don't have a plan, do you?"

He tuned towards her and shrugged one shoulder. "Hope they wander off?"

She let out a mirthless laugh. "Right."

"Actually…I was half serious."

Her jaw dropped a little and she rebutted. "But that could be days—weeks!"

"We don't know that," he countered. Turning to face her squarely he continued, "Right now we've got, what? Two hours until dusk at most? We'd barely have enough time to organize and cut through that group before we lost the light and it became dangerous. That is assuming we had the appropriate tools for that, which we don't. We're safe in here for tonight and who knows—maybe a good portion of them will wander off during the night and the group we have to deal with tomorrow will be much smaller. Let's be honest here: anything smaller than that group would be an improvement."

She certainly agreed on the last point, but did not feel as confident as he that the morning would bring change. "Do you really think they'll wander off? They can smell all those people in our camp. Or hear them or…whatever they do."

"Well, we'll just have to see what it looks like tomorrow, okay? Hey, c'mon—it's not that bad." He walked over to her and placed a hand atop her shoulder, giving it a solid squeeze. "C'mon—let's check out these desks; I'm sure a bunch of people have snacks stashed in their drawers."

Though her heart still felt heavy with the fear that they wouldn't be able to return to their community—and their family members that remained inside—she knew they had little other choice, so she agreed to divide up the search with him. "Yeah, okay, I-"

"What's that!"

She heard him gasp loudly when she went to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes. He grabbed her hand and examined the back of it with a horror-filled gaze. "Oh my god—did one of them get you? How? When?"

"What? Oh no—no." She promised when she realized what he was reacting to. "I scratched this earlier today when mom and I were scavenging. The inside of a cabinet had a rough spot and I caught it when I reached inside; it's fine," she promised him.

He stepped back, swayed noticeably on the spot, and clutched his right hand to his chest. "Oh thank god; I nearly had a heart attack!"

"I'm fine, Rick."

He pursed his lips and examined her hand once more. Then, he gazed around the area for a moment before rushing over and snagging a small bottle off one of the desks. "At least rub some hand sanitizer on it so it doesn't get infected." Without waiting for her to respond he squeezed a dollop of the cool liquid onto her cut and rubbed it in with his index fingers.

"Ah…thanks," she said, not sure how else to react to his slightly strange actions.

He nodded and then thumbed towards the other side of the building. "I'm going to go check over there; you check this side."

"Okay."

She watched him walk off, looked down at her hand, and then back up to where he was crouching down beside a desk as he opened the bottom drawers. Pulling her hand in close to her chest, Kate felt a shiver travel down her spine. In the chaos of the moment she hadn't fully processed what had happened, but now, in the calm, she realized: she had almost lost him. If she hadn't been as quick with the shotgun as she was, he could have easily been killed. Such a thought tore her up inside.

Her mother had been right earlier that day; she was still protecting her heart. She didn't want to be hurt, but all she'd succeeded in doing to that point was preventing happiness. She wanted to be happy and Rick had certainly brought her more joy than she ever expected in that dark, terrifying world. She didn't want to make things awkward between them, but based on his reaction to what he believed to be a fatal injury, she agreed with her mother's assessment; Rick did have feelings for her. With the two of them secluded in the same place for at least twelve hours, the opportunity to broach the subject was certainly available, but first she needed to gather the courage.

* * *

With his arms surprisingly full of goodies, Castle walked back to the desk from which he and Kate had separated forty minutes earlier; the desk that had been their unofficial collection station. To the growing pile he added five cans of Diet Coke, two six-packs of cheese crackers, a large bag of trail mix, and a package of beef jerky. It appeared Kate had found a similarly impressive stash of goods, and they'd only searched the top floor of the building! People really did keep a shocking amount of food in their desks.

Turning his head, he saw that she approached with three bottles of water and a bag of mixed nuts. "Wow; quite a supply," he commented.

"Yeah; I'm actually surprised."

"Well I guess people like to eat while they work…"

"No, not about that—my office had tons of food in it. I'm surprised it hadn't been picked through already."

He shrugged and guessed, "Not an obvious source of supplies, I'd imagine."

"Right." He watched as she walked over to the window and gazed out at towards their compound. The sun was beginning to drift lower in the sky, but they horde could still be seen milling around. He hated that they were trapped on the outside and that he was forced away from his daughter, but he made peace with the notion by reminding himself that the gates to the community were shut tight. Alexis was safe inside with Kate's mother, and he would see her again very soon.

"I've never seen a horde that big before; it was terrifying."

"I know," he agreed.

"With all of them together like that." She wrapped her arms around her body as she turned back to face him. "We could have been killed so easily."

"But we weren't."

"I know, but still I… I guess what I'm trying to say is that you're really important to me, Rick, and I don't want anything to happen to you."

He smiled at her sweet sentiments as he felt similarly. He stepped close to her enough to place a hand on each of her biceps as he gazed down at her. "I don't want anything to happen to you either—or your mother. We've all become family."

"Exactly!" She responded with a surprising amount of enthusiasm. "That's what Mom and I were talking about today; we're a family and that's very important, especially in times like this. So important. We just need to stick together."

"And we will," he assured her.

"Ye-yeah," she said in a way that made it seem as though she was about to say something else. He waited for several seconds, expecting her to say more, but she didn't, she merely stared straight forward, her eye-gaze somewhere around the base of his throat.

"Was there something else?"

"Wha—I—no. Not—not really."

His brow wrinkled at how flustered she sounded all of a sudden. Taking a step back to give her some space he asked, "Are you sure?"

"Well, I, um—the thing of it is, I was actually wondering—no, I mean, I thought maybe. Jesus!" She threw her hands up in the air and then covered her mouth with her left hand. Her face now clearly flushed, she confessed, "I'm doing a spectacularly terrible job of this, aren't I?"

"Job of what?" he asked, genuinely having no idea what she might be getting at.

"Of, you know, trying to see if you're interested…"

"Interested in what?"

"Sex."

"Wha—I—wha-" he stammered out with the exact opposite of eloquence for the three letter word had caught him entirely off guard. _Sex_!? Jesus! So that was what all the stammering was about; she was trying to ask him to have sex with her, which, in that moment, might have been one of the last things he expected. As such, he remained stunned into silence leading her to jump to an incorrect conclusion.

"Sex with me, I mean. Which, clearly, you're not and so…so I'm just going to go sit over here in this corner and-"

"Wait. Stop. Hang on—just give me a minute here," he requested while gently grabbing onto her forearm to hold her in place. Though her expression made it seem as though she had accidentally tossed their last remaining edible food out the window, she remained standing beside him and he took in a deep breath to collect his thoughts.

When it came right down to it the answer was a resounding yes; of course he wanted to have sex with her, but it was more complicated than that. For months he'd been concerned over how a romantic relationship might affect the dynamic of their new family. To him, whatever they built together couldn't simply be about physical pleasure or a momentary release; she meant far more to him than that.

"The thing…the thing is, Kate." He cleared his throat and gripped her hand a little tighter. "I don't think spur-of-the-moment sex is a good idea for us. I don't know about you, but I haven't been with anyone since this whole mess started."

"Neither have I," she chimed in. Then, with a small smile she added, "I mean, who thinks about that when there are reanimated corpses trying to kill you?"

The corner of his lips twitched upwards. "I was thinking more along the lines of being more concerned about finding something edible so I didn't starve to death, but that was also a factor. Truth be told, it was like that part of my body just shut down—at least, until we found Thorndale. The past few months have been different, real—and I have thought about it, definitely, but…well, when it comes right down to it: I don't think we can have something casual. You, your mom, Alexis and I—we've bonded. We're a family and I want something that will make us whole. I want a relationship—or as close to one as we can figure out when the best date I could take you on is trying to find a nice patch of ground to grow vegetables on this spring."

She cracked a smile. "That doesn't sound like a bad date at all."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," he said. Then, he used their linked hands to tug her body closer to his. He dropped his chin and sealed his lips over hers in a cautious but sweet kiss.

Kate brought her other hand up to skim down the back of his head. She raked her fingers over the fine hairs at his nape and nudged her nose against his when their lips separated. "I'm all in, Rick—if you are."

"I am. I so am." He dropped her hand in order to link his hands together behind her back and pull her even closer. He pressed his lips against hers again and felt a shiver travel down his spine when her body pressed into his. God, kissing her was even better than he thought it would be. He opened his mouth and skimmed his tongue against her bottom lip. When she let him in with a groan an uncontrollable wave of desire shot through him. In one swift move he grabbed her thighs and hoisted her up onto the closest desk. Her heels locked behind his calves and he felt her fingernails drag a trail down his spine; god, she was incredible.

Several more minutes of kissing later Castle felt Kate's hands against the bare flesh on his belly and realized she'd unzipped his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt while they kissed and he hadn't even noticed! For the first time the full weight of what they were about to do hit him, and he managed to push himself away from the desk. "Ah, wait—um, should we really do this?"

"Why wouldn't we?"

"Um…too soon?"

She laughed lightly. "We've known each other for six months."

"I know, but, um…" With the blood level in his brain down by at least half, it was difficult to process the words he wanted to say, but he definitely didn't want them to get too caught up in the moment and for her to later regret their actions—even if she'd been the one to suggest them.

She pushed herself off the desk, stood on her toes, and nipped at his bottom lip with her teeth. "Well, we're here by ourselves for the rest of the night and…" He watched her walk over to the backpack she'd deposited earlier and rummage around for a moment. When she stood upright, she held out a box that made him laugh out loud.

Castle took the box of condoms and flipped it over in his hand, both impressed by the fact that it still had the plastic-wrap seal around it and by its label. "Wow—it's even a value pack."

"Don't make fun."

"I'm definitely not," he promised, though he was completely relieved she'd at least maintained the wherewithal to think of such things. He had not, but those days having sex without birth control was most definitely a poor decision; thankfully they didn't have to worry about that.

She smiled and skimmed her hands over his belly once more. "Great—now where were we?" She grabbed the open edges of his shirt and pulled him back towards the desk, but he dug in his heels, stopping her.

"Um, I saw a couch in that corner office over there."

"Even better."

* * *

When she felt her companion's large hand splay over her ribs and caress her side gently, Kate let out a contended sigh and gave his bicep a few strokes with her thumb. She opened her eyes to see that he gazed down at her with a dopey expression, which caused her to let out a noise somewhere between a laugh and another sigh.

Rick skimmed his hand up across her breast and over the hollow of her throat until it landed at the base of her jaw. As he held her face he asked, "You okay?"

She hummed and snuggled her body closer to his. Truth be told, she hadn't been that "okay" in over a year—possibly even longer. "Better than okay. I had completely forgotten how amazing sex was."

He grinned. "Right!?"

Though she appreciated his enthusiasm, Kate realized that perhaps she'd used the wrong terminology. She hadn't so much forgotten about sex, but merely suppressed it as there had been so many other critically important things going on. As such, she believed she'd waited for the perfect time to be with Rick—an unexpectedly perfect time, as it happened, for they were certainly freer and more relaxed with each other knowing that they were completely alone. "It was pretty incredible."

"You're incredible," he said before bowing his head to press his lips softly against hers.

Kate shivered when his stubble-covered cheek brushed against hers and she recalled the same sensation against her thighs not half an hour earlier. "You're not so bad yourself, Rick."

He stroked her cheek for a moment until his expression became introspective. He pulled her a bit closer to him and said, "Incredible as it was, I don't think it was so much the length of time I'd gone without, but you and me. We have something special. I've actually thought that since Christmas."

From the way he turned his eyes away, Kate almost thought he was embarrassed by the confession, though she couldn't imagine why; it was very sweet. "Really?"

"Yeah. I wanted to be with you then, but I… I guess I didn't trust it—trust that we were safe, I mean. I lost my fiancée at the start of this so losing someone else I cared about was terrifying, especially since anyone could be lost in the blink of an eye."

She had almost forgotten about his fiancée, but with the reminder she completely understood his hesitance. She shared such feelings of trepidation, though for a slightly different reason. "I know the feeling. It's pretty much how I've felt since my dad died. I keep everyone—especially men—at a distance so I don't get attached in case I lose them but…it's not a great way to live."

"Can't be fully happy if you never let yourself fully care about anyone," he pointed out wisely.

She nodded. "Yeah, I know, but it's like you said: we can lose people so easily—we could even lose ourselves. That's why I guess—no, I know—if we find happiness we need to grab onto it, because even if it goes away, it's better than not having it at all."

"I agree," he said before lowering his lips down to hers again. He moved his hand from where it cradled her jaw to skim the valley of her breasts and then move over to her side where he gave her hip a squeeze. Lifting his head, he wiggled his eyebrows at her and asked, "Wanna go again?"

Though she wanted to scream out an affirmative response she tried her best to keep her words playful. "Well, we do have the whole night…"

"Yeah," he husked as he rolled his body on top of hers, "we do."

* * *

 **A/N** : There is 1 more chapter + Epilogue :)


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

"Okay…I think that's everything," Castle concluded as he surveyed the bed of the black pickup truck they stood behind. After trying twelve different vehicles abandoned around the office building they finally had success with that Silverado, which proved a convenient way for them to transport their supplies. Lined up in the bed were torn scraps of cloth, two tire irons, broken off pieces of office chairs, and a few other items they had picked up "just in case."

Though he should have slept soundly after three incredible rounds with Kate, Castle found himself awake in the wee hours with his thoughts pulled back towards Thorndale and their predicament. With Kate's body weighing him down, he couldn't get up and pace like he wanted to, so instead he stared up at the office ceiling tiles and considered their options.

Even if some of the monsters wandered off on their own overnight, the odds of them all being gone at first light seemed unlikely. Undoubtedly, some would remain clustered around the gate and would thus need to be either eliminated or removed before they could get back inside. While elimination came with the risk of them being injured, removing them could certainly work. They needed a distraction that was big and loud to draw those creatures away. Thankfully, by the time dawn broke he believed he'd formulated a plan.

"You ready then?" Kate asked when she stepped up beside him.

He bobbed his head. "Yeah, I think so."

She reached up and brushed her thumb over the hollow of his cheek. Giving him a reassuring smile she said, "This is going to work."

He turned his head to kiss her palm and said, "Yeah, I hope it does."

"I know it will."

"Wait," he grabbed her hand before she could step away. Pulling her in closer, he dipped his head and pressed his lips against hers. Pulling back he gave a little shrug. "Sorry—just had to do that."

"You never have to apologize for kissing me," she told him with a wink. Then, she walked around to climb into the passenger seat of the running vehicle. Castle took one more moment to observe their supplies, then he closed the tailgate flap and climbed into the driver's side of the truck.

On the surface, their plan was simple: create a diversion, draw away the undead. But, like all things, it was much more complex than that. The plan that Castle hatched overnight was to draw the creatures away by setting fire to gas tanks of cars lining the neighborhood streets. If they could also rig something that would keep the car's horn honking he figured both the noise and fire would be a worthy distraction.

Fortunately, when it was light enough for them to see, they discovered a good chunk of their work was done for them. As Rick had predicted, a good portion of the horde had moved on overnight, as the swarming bodies definitely seemed less dense. Just how many had been drawn away was impossible to tell from that distance, but they both hoped it was a significant amount.

The closer Castle drove to their settlement, the more the aftermath of the prior days' horde could be seen. On an average day, as they moved around the neighborhoods surrounding it was highly unusual for them to see any undead moving about. If they did, it was one or two at the absolute most. On that morning, he spotted eight on just one street, which made him a bit anxious about his plan, but they would have to make it work the best they could.

Once they were within a few blocks of the compound he pulled the truck over and they climbed out. They each gathered supplies and walked cautiously through the streets. In order for their plan to work, the first car they set as a trap would need to be quite close to the compound, and once they began they would need to work very quickly to keep the process moving—and to keep themselves safe.

"Here—this one," he told his companion in a hushed voice, pointing to a black sedan. The window on the driver's side was already smashed out so they didn't need to worry about making noise before they were ready too. While he pulled out one of the wooden chair pieces and prepared to jam it between the wheel and the driver's seat, Kate splashed one of the cloth scraps with the liquor they found and began stuffing one end of it into the car's gas tank.

When he was almost in position, Castle looked over at Kate and she gave him a nod. Then, just as he positioned the brace against the horn, she lit the end of the cloth strip and they took off running away from the camp.

"That one," he called out to her, pointing towards a white hatchback. That time, he did need to smash the window, but they repeated the process successfully. When they tried to do it a third time, he was unable to get the horn to sound due to the fact that the driver's seat was pushed back too far to brace the wood, so they had to abandon it and choose another.

"Watch—behind you!" Kate called out to him as they worked on another car. Their work had drawn the attention of one of the creatures and it snarled as it approached him, but Castle took care of it quickly with the tire iron.

With a third car horn now sounding, the duo swept a wide loop around to reach their truck once again so they could regroup with more supplies. As Castle drove it down the road towards the last vehicle they'd worked on, he could see a group of creatures slowly making their way towards the first burning car, away from the compound. Turning towards Kate he grinned and said, "I think it's working."

She smiled back to him. "Yeah, I think it is."

For the next hour they steadily worked to create a trail of burning cars leading away from Thorndale Place. When they finally ran out of supplies, Castle drove their truck in a wide-sweeping loop so that they would end up approaching the compound from the complete other side (the direction from which the herd came) thinking that would be the safest way to check their progress.

"Wow look at that," Kate commented when they tip-toed close enough to the compound to see the gate section of the wall.

"Not too bad," Castle agreed, taking note that now only four creatures remained in the immediate area of Thorndale's entrance.

"We can handle four, right?"

"Yeah, we can handle four."

They exited the vehicle with each of them brandishing a tire iron like a baseball bat. Castle approached first, banging the iron against the metal portion of the walls to create a loud enough sound to draw the creatures towards him. Kate looped around to the side so she was at a different angle in case a two-on-one attack became necessary, but the creatures came slow enough that they didn't have to worry, and two minutes later they were alone in the clearing. Well, alone except for the dozens of now unmoving bodies in the clearing, but cleaning them up would be a task for another day.

Jogging towards the gate, Castle dragged his tire iron against the metal wall while calling out, "Hey! Let us in!"

"It's safe now; please let us in!" Kate added with a shout.

They reached the gate and knocked on it repeatedly until they heard it begin to unlatch. The moment the door began to slide open, they both nearly dove headfirst inside, extremely relieved to once again be behind the security of Thorndale's walls.

"Jesus, guys," a man named Justin greeted them with shock and amazement. He latched the door behind them and then skimmed his hand over his brow. "We thought you didn't make it."

Castle shook his head. "No, no we're fine—we just had to hide out overnight until the herd dissipated."

"Well, you're very lucky then."

From his tone, Castle felt the hairs at the base of his neck prickle. He glanced over at Kate, who looked equally uncertain. Looking back to Justin he asked, "Did we lose people?"

"Three; everyone who was out fighting—'cept you two."

"Shit," he cursed beneath his breath, hating the fact that their newfound friends had lost their lives.

"Well thank god you two made it back! Everyone'll be glad to—"

"Shit," Castle cut off the man's sentiments as a horrible realization hit him. Turning to Kate, he said, "Your mother and Alexis—they probably think we're-"

"God!" she said, picking up on his implication.

Turning back to the man at the gate he said, "Thanks for letting us in, Justin; we'll catch up with you later." With that, he grabbed Kate's hand and they set off towards the Anderson home at a brisk pace.

* * *

"Mom! Mom!" Kate called out as she ran up the stairs in the Anderson house as quickly as she could. As soon as Rick pointed out that their family probably thought them to be dead, she'd been instantly horrified. Had the situation been reversed and she was stuck inside the walls with her mother outside, she would have been devastated, so she didn't want her mother to have to wait any longer than necessary to receive the news that they were okay.

When she reached the top of the stairs she saw her mother hovering in the doorway with a tearful expression. When she saw her daughter, she clapped both hands over her mouth and cried out. "Katie?! Oh—oh my goodness!"

Kate locked her arms around her mother's shoulders and squeezed her tightly. She felt her mother's arms encircle her waist and she shut her eyes. "It's okay, Mom."

The Beckett women embraced for a full minute before her mother pulled back and cradled her face. "We thought you—you-"

"I know, but we're fine; we're fine."

"Rick, too?"

"Yes; he's down with Alexis."

"Oh Katie!" Her mother pulled her into another embrace. "When those men didn't come back we just thought the worst."

Kate shook her head and walked past her mother to return her back to their bedroom. "We didn't know—I promise. We were fighting that horde but fell back and lost our weapons. We knew we'd never make it back inside the gates so we hunkered down someplace safe for the night. We were fine, though. Better than fine, actually," she added with a smile that she knew was far too large for their grave situation.

Johanna's eyebrow quirked upwards. "Better than? I see…does that mean one of you was inspired by crises and confessed how you felt about the other?"

She let out a light chuckle. In a roundabout sort of way she and Rick had made it clear how they felt about each other, but certainly not in the sense Johanna implied. "Um…not entirely, but it was certainly convenient I found that box of Trojans yesterday."

Johanna gasped. "Katherine!"

Grinning a bit wider, Kate shrugged. "What? You're the one that told me to have some fun with Rick and so I did!"

The elder woman gave a gentle shake of her head. "You know I didn't mean _immediately_ , right?"

"I know, I know it just…it all came out and it turns out its something we were both nervous about, but we both want."

"Well I am very happy you're happy, sweetheart."

Kate hugged her mother once more and agreed, "Me too." The prior twenty-four hours certainly marked a turning point in all of their lives, but she was more than ready for it.

"Kate?"

Hearing Rick's voice calling out to her from the first floor, she responded with, "Be right there!" Then turning to her mother she said, "Rick wants to tell Alexis about us officially; he doesn't want us sneaking around." At least, that's what he explained to her on their way back to the Anderson home.

"Just as long as you two remember there are many other people living in this house and you need to be discrete."

Kate clicked her tongue, half annoyed, half grossed-out. "Gosh Mom, did you think we're going to have daily sex on the kitchen table? Of course we'll be discrete—particularly since Rick has his own bedroom."

Johanna merely laughed as they made their way back down to the first floor, where Rick and Alexis waited for them in the hall. The elder man and woman embraced as they'd yet to greet each other, and Johanna said, "I'm so glad you made it back safely."

"Me too. Why don't we all go have a seat in the family room so we can have a little meeting, hmm?"

"Is something wrong?" Alexis asked as they made their way across the hall. "Do we have to leave because of that horde of monsters?"

"No, no Alexis; we're not leaving and nothing is wrong—the opposite, in fact." Rick, Alexis, and Kate took a seat on the couch with Johanna in the chair closest to Kate. Rick glanced at each of them in turn before turning to his daughter to explain. "Everything that happened yesterday just made us realize how important we are to each other. We've become a family. Officially, I think we'll say, since Kate and I are going to be together—dating. Dating?" He questioned, glancing towards her with his brow wrinkled, clearly looking for her input. "Are we saying dating?"

She shrugged one shoulder. "Don't know what else we'd call it."

Alexis looked at each of them with a crinkled nose. "How are you going to date?"

Kate laughed audibly at the young girl's reaction. She certainly had a point as they would not be dating in any way like she had previously done in her life, but that was okay; just because it wasn't traditional didn't mean it wasn't real. "We'll figure that how as we go."

"The point is: we're going to be together for a long time," Rick told her.

Alexis rolled her eyes. "Well I already knew that!"

"Alexis!"

"I did!" she responded wisely. "Can I go back outside now?"

"Ah, sure…okay…" Rick responded though he was clearly a bit baffled from the way their conversation had transpired.

Kate felt her mother squeeze her knee and glanced in her direction. "For what it's worth," Johanna said,  
"I already knew that, too." With that, she gave them a wink and walked off towards the hall. Kate then turned her head to face Rick, who looked as dumbfounded as she felt.

"Why were we the last to know about this?"

She laughed and squeezed his hand. "I have no idea. C'mon—let's go see if we can find something extra good for dinner. I think we've earned it."

He grinned and they stood together. "Definitely; I'm starving!"

* * *

Much later in the evening, after everything in the kitchen area had been cleaned up as best as she could clean it while working by flashlight, Kate ascended the stairs and turned towards Rick's room, where a dim light could be seen. Though he'd been bubbly during dinner, he had excused himself shortly thereafter and she had not seen him since that time. She didn't think much of it, figuring he was probably just tired, but she definitely wanted to check in with him.

When she reached the edge of his bedroom she saw he sat against the headboard with his feet flat on the bed. He appeared to be using the angle of his thighs to pop up a notebook. She caught him just as he grabbed the pen trapped between his teeth and jotted a few things down on the page. She knocked softly on the doorframe to call his attention and said, "Hey. You okay?"

He nodded. "Oh yeah; I'm great. Just wanted to write some things down. You going to bed?"

"Mmhmm."

He looked down at his watch and his brow rose sharply. "Oh wow; the time really got away from me. C'mon in."

He put his notebook and pen down on the nightstand and then scooted over towards the center of the bed, giving her room to climb in beside him. She sat and snuggled against him, dropping her arm over his waist and leaning her chin against his shoulder. When his arm closed around her body she shut he eyes and sighed. "Mmm this is much better than that tiny couch."

"Definitely. Are you going to sleep in here now?"

As she had not been intending to do so, she lifted her head and looked at him. "Should I?"

"Why not? Too soon?"

She shook her head, as that had not been her reasoning. More so, it was born of the conversation she'd had with her mother about being discrete. "No, I just didn't think we should because of Alexis; she would see us."

"That doesn't matter. I mean, she's watched me date before—she gets it."

Kate's heart skipped a beat at his comment and she felt a cold sweat break out on her forehead. "Oh god—how much does she get? Does she know what sex is? When do kids learn that?!"

His brow rose and he appeared highly amused. "Wow. Are you freaking out about this?"

"Maybe…"

He stroked her arm and was silent for a moment, but then said, "Um, okay, well, we did the birds-and-the-bees talk already so she knows roughly how babies are made, but as far as I'm aware she probably does not have enough knowledge to figure out what we're doing. She just knows that dating involves sleepovers and cuddling. This being said: the closer she gets to thirteen I fear she will become much more aware. Hell, she probably would know now if she was still in a school with kids her age. Oh look—I found a positive to the apocalypse!"

Her brow wrinkled at how excited he seemed all of a sudden. "Delaying your daughter's knowledge of sex?"

"Hey—when you have an almost teenage girl, you take a win any way you can get it," he told her very seriously.

She dropped her head to his shoulder once more. "I'm sure."

He kissed her head and said, "I'm glad we're here together."

"Me too."

"I'm serious—with everything that's happened in the past year. I could not be more grateful that we're together; that we found each other."

Kate lifted her head, pressed her lips to his, and then said, "Me too."

* * *

 **A/N** : thank you all so much for sticking with me though yet another post-apocalyptic tale - i really appreciate it especially since so many of you said this wasn't your cup of tea but you were reading it anyway!

Epilogue will be posted Thursday. I think I'm going to post a few mini fics next before we get back to another chapter fic.

Stay tuned and thanks again!


	15. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Kate opened her eyes to see the slightest hints of sunlight streaming into her bedroom through the curtains. She sucked in a deep breath, pressed her lips together, and shut her eyes once again, hoping to catch a few more minutes of sleep until she heard the soft sounds of whimpering coming from down the hall. Ah, so that was why she had awoken.

Like any new mother, Kate was highly in tune with any and all sounds her child made. Though she had graduated from those first few weeks during which even the slightest cry had her bolting from bed and running down the hall, she still paid attention and never wanted Jake to cry any longer than he had to. She remained unmoving for several moments, listening and trying to determine if it was a sleep-whimper or an awake one, but when he let out a yell she knew it was the latter.

Flipping back the sheets, Kate reached for the thin robe she kept draped at the end of the bed and tugged it on while shuffling out of the bedroom, not bothering to look back to see if her husband was still asleep. As she had dubbed him the world's heaviest sleeper on more than one occasion, she knew that he would be, but that didn't mean he was unwilling to help with childcare; it simply meant she had to nudge (or kick—on occasion) him awake first.

Walking down the hall, Kate twisted her hair into a knot at the base of her neck. Then, she pushed open the door to her son's room and found him laying on his back, squirming his arms and legs. "Well good morning Jake," she cooed to him. He immediately stopped fussing and turned towards the sound of his mother's voice. She reached down and scooped him up, pressing a kiss to the top of his head before moving him to her hip so she could cross the room. In a move she'd perfected over the prior five months, she sat in the nearby rocking chair, hiked her t-shirt up, and moved Jake into position so he could nurse at her breast. Then, once his tiny fist closed around her thumb she shut her eyes, leaned her head back, and rocked them gently back and forth.

As she often did in those quite moments, Kate liked to think about her life, and how grateful she was to have the incredible family she had. Years earlier when she was still a lawyer in New York she never could have conceived of a life in Georgia, married to an incredible man; a life in which she was a mother. Life had a funny way of guiding you on the path you were meant to lead—or so her husband liked to say.

Kate, Rick, and their family members had been settled in Georgia nearly a year before they heard actual news from the government regarding their near-apocalyptic scenario. For a brief period of time, their lives actually became more frustrating as disorganized government agencies tried to take over and provide assistance, but within a few months things seemed to be going smoothly once more. By that point, they had been moved to an organized suburb outside Atlanta where Alexis could attend school and Rick and Kate could marry officially and start their lives together.

Though things began to feel as close to "normal" as they had in years, life was still a struggle. Electricity existed, but it was spotty and sometimes unreliable. Necessities like food, water, and appropriate sewage disposal also had their rough points. As Rick had once predicted, they were returning to a semblance of the life that they knew, but they would never go back entirely.

It wasn't long after they married that Rick began hinting to Kate that he wanted to have another child. With things still so uncertain, Kate was able to push him off, but as the months wore on, her arguments felt more and more worn out, causing frustration and a small amount of tension in their relationship. When it came right down to it, she wasn't opposed to having a child with Rick. In fact, it was most definitely something she wanted, as he was an incredible father already and she wanted to expand on their love and their relationship. At the same time, their society did not have its same level of medical care as it had before and she was, quite frankly, terrified of deadly complications. When she ultimately explained this to him, he was wonderfully understanding, and predictably overzealous. Somehow, he'd arrange a hospital tour for her to set her more at ease. Much to her shock and slight annoyance, it was quite a convincing argument.

Though it was perhaps one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of her entire life, giving birth had also been one of the best. Having Rick beside her when she brought their son into the world was a moment powerful enough to bring all three of them to tears. It was extraordinary, and so was Jake. After everything she'd experienced leading up to his arrival, she didn't hesitate to call him her miracle.

"Hey."

Kate gazed up to see her bleary-eyed husband standing in the doorway scratching his hand through his bed-mussed hair. She cracked an amused smile at how he still fought the early morning hours, even though Jake rarely let either of them sleep past seven. "Morning."

"Have you been up long?"

She shook her head. "No, not very."

He shuffled over, brushed his lips against the top of her head, and then sat down on the floor to greet his son with the gentle brush of his hand over his head.

While Kate and her mother had returned to their legal careers, navigating what was a new, and often murky, set of rules in the new world, Rick had not gone back to his writing—at least, not entirely. After contributing so much to their food supply in Thorndale Place, he said he didn't feel right going back to a career where he wasn't actively helping society, so he took a position as a high school English teacher, and continued to write during evenings and weekends. Since Jake was born, he hadn't had much time as he spent all available free time with his son, though Kate hoped that one day he'd publish again; the world just didn't seem right without Richard Castle novels in it.

"Mmm you know maybe I should call in sick today and hang out with you guys," Rick mused when he settled his hands on her knees.

Kate rolled her eyes as he often tried to play hooky, though never actually pulled the trigger. "You're students would be so disappointed."

He flashed her a pointed look. "No, they wouldn't; they'd love it."

Kate merely hummed and said, "Well, we'll be here when you get back."

He gazed up at her, squeezed her knee, and smiled. "I can't wait."

* * *

 **A/N** : Thank you all so much for reading

stay tuned for what's next :)


End file.
